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Singapore: Revision in IP practice and official fees from April 29, 2022

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has announced certain changes to IP practices, as well as a general increase in official fees.

Drawing a parallel between aesthetics and functionality for design protection

Like many counties in the world, India has a strong law for protecting aesthetic creations by way of design registration. The design law protects aesthetic creations and not the functionality. There is often a misconception regarding the eligibility...

Domain names qualifying as IP rights like trademarks?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This Shakespeare line in Romeo & Juliet is good so long as it means name is nothing but a name. However, in the corporate world, acquired and fancy names play a n...

In the matter of a trademark application by Health & Happiness Hong Kong Limited, and opposition the...

The application mark was used in relation to a communications enterprise that provided tailor-made services, including advertising and marketing. The opponent’s core business is in “Monster Energy” brand energy drinks, and is a leader in the beverage...

The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Renaissance clarifies the legal test for the infringement o...

On January 19, 2022, India’s apex court delivered its decision in Renaissance Hotel Holdings Inc v. B Vijaya Sai & Ors., Civil Appeal, 404 of 2022, setting the law on the tests to determine trademark infringement, holding that when a defendant uses a...

Deferred examination: Patent strategy or business necessity?

With fierce competition growing, the explosion of patenting activity is visible in all patent jurisdictions. Every patent office lacks the infrastructure and examination capacity to deal with this exponential increase in the filing of patent applicat...

Non fungible tokens (NFTs) – What is the brouhaha all about?

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs as they are popularly known, have taken the world by storm – so much so that Collins Dictionary picked NFT as the word of the year in 2021. It defines a NFT as “a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain tha...

How skilled is a “Person Skilled In The Art” supposed to be?

Patent laws of various jurisdictions stipulate inventive step as one of the requirements for patentability. The step has been stipulated so that a trivial and insignificant variation, which a person may deduce as an obvious consequence of the prior a...

Third-party observations in industrial designs

Assessing genuine use and distinctive character of a registered trademark in Singapore

The Singapore trademark law provides for two ways through which a party may seek to challenge a third party’s mark that has already been registered, namely: revocation and invalidation. In relation to revocation, Section 22(1) of the Trade Marks Ac...

Post-grant amendments: Flexibility or certainty?

Amendment of patent claims is one of the most critical and strategic decisions that needs to be made during the lifetime of a patent. Both pre- and post-grant amendments can be of strategic importance in determining the economic value of the patent....

Routine optimization and the patentability hitch

Innovative activity is not a onetime affair. Many innovations rely on the activities involving the manipulation of variables of known compounds, formulations or combinations, and the optimization of process variables such as proportions

Well-known trademarks in India

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), “A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from those of other enterprises. Trademarks are protected by intellectual property rights.” Wit...

The dominancy test and likelihood of confusion

The KOLIN mark has been the subject of two landmark decisions in the Philippines, including the recent one promulgated on February 9, 2021, G.R. No. 228165, uploaded on the Supreme Court website on June 15, 2021, docketed as Kolin Electonics Co., Ltd...

Singapore-registered design subsidiary amendments

Published by the Intellectual Property of Singapore (IPOS) on September 10, 2021, amendments have been made on the Registered Designs Rules ("RD Rules") and the Registered Designs (International Registration) Rules ("RD(IR) Rules"), which took effect...