The Philippines Government recognises Intellectual property as indespensible to the development of domestic and creative activity, facilitating transfer of technology, attracting foreign investments, and ensuring market access for our products. Hence, the government resolves to protect and secure the exclusive rights of scientists, inventors, artists and other gifted citizens to their intellectual property and creations, […]
Malaysia Cyber Rogues Unleashed – The relevance of Intellectual Property Rights
Cyber Rogues who fake websites to deceive buyers into making them believe that the goods are real and being delivered are overwhelmingly increasing in Malaysia. The number of computer security intrusions in 2005 were approximately 660 cases involving business transactions involving '.com' and '.net' websites, 42 non-governmental organizations that involves the '.org', 79 cases involving […]
Singapore Court Enforces Johnson & Johnson’s IP Rights
Johnson & Johnson, one of the world's most comprehensive and broadly based manufacturer of health care products for the consumer, pharmaceutical, and medical devices and diagnostics markets recently secured a landmark decision in Singapore which cemented protection of its intangible IP rights when the High Court ruled that there has been an infringement of its […]
Increase in Government Filing Fees for IP in Indonesia
The Indonesian Government, on 15 February 2007 issued the Government Regulation No. 19 Year 2007 amending Regulation No. 75 Year 2005 concerning Tariff of Non-Tax National Income at the Department of Law and Human Rights. The Regulation comes into effect within 30 days from the date of issuance of the said regulation. Therefore, starting from […]
Landmark Decision On Well Known Mark In Singapore
Trademarks serve to distinguish between the goods or services of competing organisations. The Paris Convention was the first agreement to address well-known marks. The extension of protection in cases of lack of use or registration was seen as a significant departure from traditional trademark law and this right was generally accorded to a very select […]
India - Are We TRIPs Compliant Yet?
In last five years, the Indian parliament has amended the patent law twice. Despite the government's efforts to make the patent law compliant with the TRIPs Agreement, the international community's qualms about India's patent law remains unchanged. The debate on TRIPs compliance is heating up again since the publication of a report on various patent […]
Malaysia Trade Marks and Open Source Software
Source codes of open source software are developed and distributed through licences known as the general public licence (GPL). However, the trade marks of the software developers are not distributed along with these source codes. While distributors' brands and trade marks belong to them, the underlying source code belongs to the open source community. Therefore, […]
Malaysia - Acushnet Obtains Summary Judgment
US golf equipment manufacturer Acushnet, which owns the Titleist trade mark in Malaysia, has managed to obtain summary judgment against a local company in the case Acushnet Company v Metro Golf Manufacturing Sdn Bhd [2006] 7 CLJ 557. The proceedings began in 2004 when, following the discovery of documents incriminating the defendant, the enforcement division […]
Counterfeit goods in daily Malaysian lives – How Malaysia fights back
Most often the news broadcast on counterfeiting in Malaysia are usually associated with branded goods. This disease has now plagiarized Malaysian soil and as a consequence, its consumers have repeatedly been exposed to the "ill-gotten fruits" of counterfeits in their daily lives as these items are now circulating in the form of essential products used […]
Singapore Courts Enforce Trade Mark Rights in Healthcare Product Case
Although most trade mark disputes are usually settled at the interlocutory injunction stage, one of the few cases where, despite the grant of an interlocutory injunction, the matter proceeded to trial was recently decided by the High Court in Singapore. The case being OTO Bodycare Pte Ltd v Hiew Keat Foong [2005] SGHC133 concerned the […]