INTA Roundtable on Malaysia’s Entry Into The Madrid Protocol
Kuala Lumpur: Home-grown boutique intellectual property firm KASS International led an International Trademark Association (INTA) Roundtable Discussion today on Malaysia’s future accession to the Madrid Protocol.
INTA Roundtables are known worldwide for being a popular and in-depth dialogue on the benefits and loopholes of various trademark issues between experienced intellectual property practitioners. The Roundtables encourage the strengthening of camaraderie amongst professionals in the country or region, and the sharing of impactful ideas on current and relevant international trademark issues through a brief but intense discourse.
Held in conjunction with World Intellectual Property Day, celebrated a day earlier on 26 April 2011, this Roundtable attracted participants from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. The topic was a timely one as Malaysia would soon be acceding to the Madrid Protocol.
At present, trademark owners in Malaysia who want to protect their trademarks in several countries do so by filing their trademarks in each country of interest, and this takes up considerable amounts of time and money. The Madrid Protocol is a system that allows business owners to file one application with the national trademark office of a member country and extend that registration to multiple member countries, thereby simplifying the registration process. There are currently 84 member countries party to the Madrid Protocol. Thus, the imminent accession spells out good news for local business owners looking to penetrate overseas markets. Not only will it be time and cost effective to obtain trademark protection in several countries at the same time – as application fees only need to be paid once – but it also enables easier management of the trademark. The question now is whether the Malaysian IP Office is prepared to cope with the substantial workload that this entails. All this and more were addressed during the Roundtable.
“When Singapore first acceded to the Madrid Protocol, there was a noticeable increase in terms of the total number of trademark applications which continued for a number of years, based on figures from the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS),” said invited guest, Tricia Dang, Deputy General Manager of Intellectual Property from Nanyang Law LLC, Singapore.
“This system is a powerful tool for our local MNCs and SMEs who are exploring markets outside Malaysia. However, that which is a boon could also be a bane. As there are certain disadvantages to the system, it is imperative that qualified and reliable advice is sought prior to embarking on the Madrid Protocol journey,” added Roundtable moderator Geetha Kandiah, Director of Trademarks and Industrial Designs Division of KASS International.
She stresses, “Business owners stand to gain from exploiting their trademark rights through various avenues like franchising and licensing, or even outright selling of their rights to a third party. This awareness of Intellectual Property Rights protection is the key to turning the intangible asset of trademarks into a money making machine.”
KASS will continue to offer awareness programmes and professional services that will simplify the process for clients in trademark filing and prosecution. As more Malaysians businesses aim to expand overseas, encouraged and supported by the government, engaging the services of a reputable and professional firm to handle IP matters is becoming all the more crucial.
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