Director Meryl Koh contributed to Asia IP article on defeating trademark infringers
07 Oct 2020
Director Meryl Koh was invited to contribute to Asia IP’s latest article on trademark infringement. The article discussed how brand owners were successful in their disputes against the infringers. Meryl cited a few trademark cases and explained why the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) ruled in favour of the asset owners.
One of the cases mentioned was TWG Tea Company Pte Ltd v T2 Singapore Pte Ltd, regarding TWG Tea’s application for confidentiality safeguards of its advertising expenditure and sales figures in response to an allegation that its mark lacked distinctiveness. IPOS favoured TWG Tea’s application and provided some clarifications. Meryl explained these insights and was quoted in Asia IP saying, “The Registrar will not generally impose confidentiality safeguards where a party voluntarily puts forward purportedly confidential information in support of its cases, unless there is a compelling case for doing so, in light of non-exhaustive factors such as the importance of the information to the dispute, the degree to which the information is confidential and how current the information is, among others.”
The other cases highlighted in the article were:
· Burberry and anor v. Megastar Shipping, a case brought by various trademark proprietors against the freight forwarding company, Megastar Shipping, for counterfeit importation
· Abbott Laboratories v. Societe des Produits Nestle, where the applicant sought to register “HM-O” in respect of (among other things) milk, milk-based products and certain non-milk products
· Aalst Chocolate v. The Patissier, where The Patissier (French for the pastry chef) was questioned in respect of its description of baked goods and restaurant services under Section 7(1)(c) of the act such that registration of the mark should be invalidated
· Scotch Whisky Association v. Isetan Mitsukoshi, where the applicant sought to register “ISETAN TARTAN” in respect of whiskey
You may click here to read the full article that appears on Asia IP.