The IP and technology team at Rahmat Lim & Partners offers a wide range of contentious and non-contentious IP-related services and advises on a broad spectrum of enforcement, management and transactional issues, including work on criminal copyright enforcement of data centres hosting AI and experimental IP litigation, such as fair doctrine defences for copyright infringement in the AI context. Among its most interesting copyright work, the firm Acted for Joey Yap Research Group and Joey Yap Private Limited, a Chinese metaphysics consulting group in initiating a lawsuit against third-party online infringers who have been distributing and selling hundreds of copyrighted works belonging to Joey Yap and bearing Joey Yap’s trademarks on websites and various e-commerce platforms such as Shopee and Lazada. Despite the first defendant selling pirated Joey Yap products on its online stores in foreign currencies, the firm successfully identified and linked the second defendant with the first defendant after many months of surveillance. The firm says the lawsuit is particularly noteworthy as the second defendant turned out to be an existing student of Joey Yap, who managed to conceal his true identity behind multiple accounts and foreign IP addresses, knowing full well that his actions in selling hundreds of Joey Yap’s books and programs online for profit were unlawful. After pleadings closed, the defendants filed a security of costs interim application as a delay tactic. Recently, the defendants security for cost application has dismissed by the court and costs were awarded to Joey Yap. Parties are now in the midst of filing pre-trial documents and trial dates have been set. Partner Pauline Khor, head of the intellectual property and technology department, is known for her fresh perspective and creative solutions.

Malaysia Patent Prosecution Firm of the Year

Well-established IP specialist Marks & Clerk handles all areas of intellectual property, with particular strengths in life science, information technology and electronics. The firm has a global reputation for delivering quality parent prosecution and its Malaysia office handles patent drafting to UK and European standards. The patent practice, led by director Chris Hemingway, is one of the very few Malaysian patent practices to have a UK- and Europe-qualified patent attorney which, it says, has found that this expertise has attracted drafting work that otherwise would likely have been sent offshore to firms in Singapore or Australia. Key patent clients include Petronas, NGLtech, Panasonic, Sengenics, Vulcan Photonics and LuxTag, as well as a number of the local Universities such as USM, UTP, IIUM and UMP. New clients include Cancer Research Malaysia, Areodyne, Medika and Cryocord.

Malaysia Patent Contentious Firm of the Year

Skrine’s sizeable IP department provides comprehensive IP services with an excellent track record in contentious and advisory matters. The firm acted for Dyson in patent dispute involving its bladeless fan technology. It also successfully has Ronic Corporation’s application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court dismissed in its infringement claim against Cadware. The outstanding Charmayne Ong is head of the intellectual property division.

Malaysia Trademark Prosecution Firm of the Year

Full-service firm Shearn Delamore & Co’s IP practice is led by Karen Abraham, with its IP team providing professional services for more than 40 years and being widely recognized as one of the leading firms in Malaysia. The firm is one of the very few firms in Malaysia which manages very large trademark portfolios of clients, with several large profile clients with sizable trademark portfolios worldwide, namely the Astro and Petronas groups. With a team comprising of more than 100 support staff, clerks and lawyers and its international networks, the firm has the ability and capacity to handle urgent and bulk filings within the day. Other trademark clients include technology companies such as Google, Facebook and Tesla; pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer; and luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton Malletier and LVMH Fashion Group, Hermes and BVGARI. Other top practitioners include Jyeshta Mahendran, Indran Shanmuganathan, Timothy Siaw, Janet Toh, Raghuram Supramanium and Sook Eng Sim.

Wong & Partners, the Malaysia member firm of Baker McKenzie, is known for its work in patent litigation, filing and strategies. The firm has been engaged by La Pointique against its previous distributor, SJC Solex, in trademark infringement cases. Lead partner Kherk Ying Chew, one of the top litigators in the country, heads up the practice, which has advised both major Malaysian companies like Measat Broadcast Network Systems and international businesses.

Mongolia Intellectual Property Firm of the Year

IPPI focuses on IP and technology transfer matters, making it one of very few Mongolia-based firms doing IP work exclusively. D. Damdinbayar, a Mongolian patent attorney and member of the Association of Mongolian Intellectual Property Agents, says the firm can provide services including national phase PCT applications and filing patent, trademark and related applications in Mongolia. Damdinbayar spent more than a decade working in Japan in a Japanese patent attorney office and has brought high-quality service from that office to Ulaanbataar. The firm also operates a certified translation bureau that handles Japanese, English, Russian, German and Korean translations. The firm also serves as the Ulaanbaatar branch of Clover International Patent Firm in Tokyo.

U Myint Lwin Law Office is one of the most reliable firms in the country, with founder Myint Lwin providing consistent, high-quality service. The firm, which was founded in 1994, works with domestic and international clients in obtaining and maintaining trademark registrations.

Founded in 1972, Ali & Associates is an internationally-recognized full-service law firm specializing in IP, media and IT. The firm is led by senior partner Syed Auqil Ali Shah and managing partner Karimullah Adeni. The team is well-known for enforcement and litigation work, and has represented domestic and foreign clients in the cosmetic, chemical, textile, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, machinery, electronic, automobile and agriculture sectors. The firm has domestic offices in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, and foreign offices in Kabul and the Washington area.

Pakistan Patent Firm of the Year

Founded in February 1948 in Karachi by the late Sheikh Fazal Ellahi, Sheikh Brothers is an IP boutique providing services covering all aspects of IP including patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyright, unfair competition, licensing, franchising, technology transfer, litigation and enforcement. Amongst two partners, four associates and 10 other staff members, Salman Ahmed Sheikh stands out of the crowd and represents well with clients at all forums including the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Pakistan Trademark Firm of the Year

Founded by Abdur Bharucha in 1948, Bharucha & Co is one of the oldest firms for patent and trademark prosecution work in Karachi. The firm collaborates with an IP-focused investigation agency, so time-restricted projects can be handled swiftly. It has developed an extensive and dynamic network of law firms in neighbouring countries, mainly South Asian and Gulf countries, to assure its clients of reliable assistance in said jurisdictions. The law firm filed an opposition against the application for registration of a local company’s trademark on behalf of a foreign company – the real proprietor of the trademark – whose marks are already in use in many countries. The opposition was allowed and the local company’s application was refused for registration.

Cruz Marcelo & Tenefrancia’s services include prosecution of applications for the registration of trademarks and patents and applications for issuance of copyright deposit; protection of business models, trade secrets and undisclosed information; IP commercialization; handling administrative, civil and criminal cases; dispute settlement; mediation involving IPRs; and anti-piracy programs and intellectual property enforcement cases. The firm works closely with clients such as visual artists, collective management organizations, art galleries, the heirs of a National Artist for Theater and Literature, and software developers, to name a few. Its experience in dealing with creators and artists from copyright protection, commercialization, and enforcement of their copyrights provides it a distinct advantage as a go-to firm in copyright matters. Susan D. Villanueva and Divina Gracia E. Pedron are senior partners who are key to the copyright practice.

Sapalo Velez Bundang & Bulilan is based in Manila with branch offices in Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Davao and Iloilo. Led by managing partner Ignacio Sapalo and senior partner Neptali Bulilan, the IP team represents clients worldwide, including Toyota Technical Development Corporation, JFE Steel Corporation, Yamaha Motors Corporation, Sony Computer and Entertainment Inc., Unicharm Corporation and Dart Industries.

Headquartered in Manila with branches in Cebu, Subic and Davao, SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan is one of the country’s largest law firms in terms of client base and range of IP services. Led by partner Vida M. Panganiban-Alindogan, the IP team includes litigation specialists for inter partes and other administrative proceedings before IPOPHL as well as cases in courts. Panaganiban-Alindogan has successfully represented intellectual property owners and stakeholders in various negotiations and proceedings, which prevented the registration and, in certain instances use, of infringing third-party trademarks. She counsels clients regarding domain name issues as well as trademark and copyright issues in social media. 

The Hechanova Group – Hechanova & Co. and Hechanova Bugay Vilchez & Andaya-Racadio – is based in Manila, where the former firm focuses on prosecution matters and the latter on litigation work. With key IP practitioners including president Editha Hechanova and partner Maria Gladys Vilchez, the firm advices on matters related to patents, trademarks, copyright, domain names, utility models, designs, litigation, licensing and franchising. One of its foremost clients is Alibaba Group Holding Limited for which the firm filed 44 applications covering various technologies in a 12-month period. Chrissie Anne Barredo is a key contact for patent prosecution and litigation.

Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz (ACCRALAW) has assisted a famous U.S. fast food restaurant chain in successfully prosecuting an infringement/unfair competition case against a local company, as well as a trademark opposition case against another local fast food entity seeking to register a confusingly similar mark, and a European footwear company in protecting its trademark in the Philippines by successfully prosecuting a cancellation case against a local company that had been able to register the European company’s trademark. It also recently assisted a Japanese footwear company in securing a conviction against a seller of counterfeit goods. Senior partner Alex Ferdinand Fider, partners Victor N. De Leon, John Paul M. Gaba, Richmond K. Lee and Jose Eduardo T. Genilo are top practitioners.

South Korea Copyright Firm of the Year

Since 1961, Lee International IP & Law has been a leader in South Korean IP with one of the largest and most active domestic practices, advising on patent prosecution, trademark registration, and a wide range of IP disputes, including patent and trademark litigation, anti-counterfeiting and infringement matters, domain name and copyright disputes as well as trade secret enforcement. Key contacts include managing partner Terry Taehong Kim as well as senior partners Jin-Hoe Kim and Yoon Suk Shin.

South Korea Patent Prosecution Firm of the Year

Based in Seoul since 1952, the NAM IP Group, formerly known as NAM & NAM, is one of the oldest IP law firms in the country. The team comprises patent attorneys as well as Korean and American attorneys-at-law. The clientele includes MNCs, NPOs, universities, SMEs and individual inventors. Ben Yuu, who was previously vice president and patent counsel at Samsung Electronics’ IP Centre, is the managing partner.

South Korea Patent Contentious Firm of the Year

South Korea Trademark Prosecution Firm of the Year

Lee & Ko is a full-service law firm headquartered in Seoul. Lee & Ko’s IP Practice Group advised and represented multinational companies covering a wide spectrum of industries including pharmaceutical & bio, chemical, mechanical, electrical, telecommunications, and computer software industries. Its patents team has set numerous Korean Supreme Court precedents and litigated landmark cases, including Kimberly-Clark v. Procter & Gamble and LG Life Sciences, a patent infringement claim in connection with Kimberly-Clark’s diaper related patent in which the firm successfully vitiated the largest damages claim ever asserted in South Korea. Lee & Ko’s patents team actively represented Samsung in the Samsung v. Apple worldwide patent dispute on smartphone technologies, which recently, resulted in the largest damages claim in the past decade in South Korea. On the trademarks side, the firm represents numerous foreign trademark owners, including Giorgio Armani, Prada, Jack Daniel’s, Estée Lauder, Giordano, Williams Sonoma (the owner of Pottery Barn), Mars (the maker of M&M’s), eBay, Chick-fil-A, Lacoste, Vera Wang and domestic trademark owners such as BTS, BLACKPINK, LG Household & Healthcare.

South Korea Trademark Contentious Firm of the Year

Based in Seoul and headed by Jay Yang, Kim & Chang’s IP practice is one of the largest in the jurisdiction, with some 400 IP litigators, patent attorneys and foreign IP attorneys, and nearly 600 patent engineers, trademark paralegals and support staff. The firm represented LEGO in a case against LegoChem Bio, which in 2016 filed applications for the subject mark, as well as for their “LegoChemBio” logo in English and in Korean (10 applications in total). Kim & Chang filed oppositions against them all but requested suspensions of the other cases, pending the dispute over the subject LEGOCHEMPHARMA mark. Lego’s opposition was accepted on the basis of consumer confusion and dilution, but LegoChem Bio successfully appealed to the Intellectual Property Trial and Appeal Board (IPTAB), which thereafter also dismissed LEGO’s invalidation action on the basis that consumer confusion would be unlikely, and denied the dilution claim. Kim & Chang successfully appealed the invalidation decision to the IP High Court, and LegoChemBio then appealed to the Supreme Court. The firm successfully argued that since the LEGO mark has obtained a very high level of fame in South Korea and the compared marks are similar, the reputation which LEGO enjoys as a result of its significant investments in its brand, the brand’s marketing power and consumer appeal would be diluted from any use of the subject mark regardless of whether there is a likelihood of confusion or any competition between the parties’ products.

Century-old civil law firm Julius & Creasy offers advice on enforcement, management and transactional matters pertaining to IP law. The firm has acted for several Fortune 500 companies and has acted as Sri Lanka correspondent of several trademark and patent attorney firms in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. Anomi Wanigasekera heads the firm’s IP practice; she has extensive experience in the full range of enforcement, management and transactional matters pertaining to IP law. She also overlooks the drafting and reviewing of contracts at the firm, and advises on regulatory compliance matters. The firm has filed numerous patent applications, hundreds of patent renewals, and many responses to substantive examination reports.

Sri Lanka Trademark Firm of the Year

John Wilson Partners offers clients responsive, professional and fast turnaround for all types of IP filings. Managing principal John Wilson has invested considerable resources over the years to develop in-house custom docketing software, which facilitates efficient handling of large client portfolios, applications and renewals. The firm advises the media and entertainment industries on corporate issues, production and rights acquisition, exploiting media rights, intellectual property protection and enforcement, and regulatory and administrative issues. It undertakes litigation involving claims in defamation and libel and handles recovery actions for unpaid foreign broadcasters. It advises broadcasters, advertisers, international and national associations, rights holders, agencies and promoters, studios, distributors, event promoters, sponsors and other leading corporations and individuals in the field. It also advises in regard to television programme format issues.