It’s not often we get to write about Brunei. The country is often overshadowed by its much larger neighbours – it shares an island with Malaysia and Indonesia, and is, in fact, divided into two sections joined by Malaysia’s Asia Highway Route 150. Colin Ong, managing partner of Dr. Colin Ong Legal Services, in 2014 wrote for the Oxford Business Group that “Brunei Darussalam is a place of tranquility.”

But Brunei is working hard to increase its relevance in the global intellectual property community. Brunei recently inked a deal with the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines for IPOPHL to provide search and examination services for patent applications in Brunei. IPOPHL said in February 2024 that the outsourcing arrangement grew out of a memorandum of understanding signed in 2023 between Paduka Haji Ahmad bin Haji Isa, then registrar of the Brunei Darussalam IP Office (BruIPO) and IPOPHL director general Rowel Barba.

Under the agreement, IPOPHL will accept reexamination, provide opinions in response to an opposition over an amendment to a patent and extend capacity-building activities to help BruIPO adopt international best practices in patent search and examination, the Inquirer newspaper reported in Manila.

IPOPHL committed to processing a maximum of 200 applications a year from BruIPO.

In March, BruIPO and the World Intellectual Property Organization held an IP management clinic at the Attorney General’s Chambers. The clinic included mentoring from IP experts from Singapore, with a focus on creating and executing IP strategies, with assistance from lawyers from Yusof Halim & Partners. Participants also learned about branding, valuation, licensing and franchising from brand consultant Shujuan Tan. More than 16 enterprises took part.

It is against that backdrop that we bring you our list of Brunei’s IP Experts, a list of 10 key intellectual property lawyers who almost certainly be involved in the future of IP in the kingdom.

Our list includes lawyers from Abrahams, Davidson & Co.; AIP Law; CCW Partnership; Cheok Advocates & Solicitors; Dr. Colin Ong Legal Services; Mirandah Asia; Y.C. Lee & Lee; and Yusof Halim & Partners.

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.

All of them have something in common: they are experts in their fields and, in one way or another, they provide extra value for their clients. They are Asia IP’s Brunei IP Experts. – GREGORY GLASS

Brunei’s IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to in-house counsel in Southeast Asia and around the world, as well as Southeast Asia-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel.

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has nearly 50 years of collective experience in researching and understanding the Southeast Asian legal market.

All private practice intellectual property lawyers in Brunei were eligible for inclusion in the nominations process; there were no fees or other requirements for inclusion in the process.

The names of our 10 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.