The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has issued a practice direction allowing the registration of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) as designs under the Registered Designs Act (RDA) effective 11 December 2014. One of the requirements to qualify for registration of design in Singapore is industrial applicability. In order to satisfy this requirement, GUIs must […]
ASEAN – Comparison of Design Practices
Design laws vary by country. Some countries classify designs as patents and some have separate “registered design” or “industrial design” systems. In some countries, designs of products must be whole products in order to be registrable and not parts of products. Some countries allow protection of only part or parts of the product but the […]
Design Litigation in Indonesia: Another Tale of David and Goliath
PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (Persero) Tbk (PGN) (the Defendant), is an Indonesian company involved in the business of transmission and distribution of natural gas. In 2012, an action for infringement was filed by M Rimba Aritonang (the Plaintiff) in respect of Design No. ID0009708 entitled “Meter Box Adaptor” and was assigned Case No. 73/D.I/2012/PN.Niaga.Jkt.Pst. […]
Thailand – Can You Register A Functional Design?
Registration of designs in Thailand is governed by the Department of Intellectual Property and the Thai Patent Act. There are lacunas in the Act design patents, especially where it proves difficult to draw the line between invention patents and design patents. Section 3 of the Act merely provides that a design is ‘…any configuration of […]
ASEAN and India – The Importance of Industrial Design Protection
Of the four pillars of intellectual property protection – patents, industrial designs, trademarks and copyrights – perhaps the most overlooked is that for industrial (ornamental) designs. In most countries, the available design protection is generally very narrow, with a minimal halo of protection around the exact design depicted in the application. Why would an applicant […]
Thailand – Mediation Achieves Impressive Success Rate
Litigation in Thailand has often been stigmatised as lengthy, expensive, cumbersome and convoluted. Indeed, the weight of this fear burdens not so much the infringers of IP rights but, disproportionately more in fact, brand owners themselves. Where litigation in Thailand has revealed many shortcomings, it has been cast away as commercially non-sensical for the protection […]
Thailand – An invention filed as a design: Dcon concrete planks
In many countries, IP law affords separate protection to functional and non-functional aspects of a newly developed product. While novelty in function (a new invention) is covered by patent law, newness in aesthetics and other superficial features are protected by design law. However, in Thailand, IP protection for functional and design aspects is not mutually […]
India – Case Addresses Copyright/Design Overlap
With the increasing realization among stakeholders of the importance of IP rights, we have seen a large number of disputes pertaining to its protection and preservation. It may not be surprising to see disputes involving two or more such rights. An example is the overlap between copyright and designs, which has been rightly dealt with […]
Thailand finally accedes to Paris Convention
Thailand ratified accession to the Paris Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) on 10 January 2008. The legal instrument of accession to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was submitted to the WIPO on 2 May 2008, thus Thailand became bound by the Paris Convention on 2 August 2008, bringing the […]
Latest Developments in Vietnam IP Law
The Vietnamese government has actively taken measures to ensure that the country’s IP laws are effective. They have recognized the relationship between economic development and IP protection. In fact the economic development in Vietnam is one of the most progressive one in Southeast Asia in terms of percentage growth of the GDP. So these IP […]