Archives for October 2016
[MGCC Perspectives] IP Stars title goes to KASS Directors P. Kandiah and Geetha K.
[MGCC Perspectives] Intellectual Property: How Patents, Trademarks and Copyright could affect your Business
On 17 August 2016, MGCC together with KASS International Sdn. Bhd. organized a business dialogue on intellectual property to explore how patents, trademarks and copyright could affect businesses. Mr. P. Kandiah, the founder and Director of KASS International was the speaker for the session Several interesting topics were discussed during the session, such as the value of a business name, trademark of product or services, strategic value of manufacturing process, product configuration & service industry processes, creation & management of IP assets and growth of business using IP assets. The speaker also showed examples about the combinations of Rights on a product which comprises of trademark, patents, copyright and industrial design.
[The Petri Dish] IP Rights in UK after Brexit
[Trademart] ON-SITE PLANT VISITS – can be dangerous as confidential information can leak. Do manufacturers have such concerns?
The Curious Case of KYOORIUS Mark
By Rebecca Chong
Would past dealings tantamount to bad faith and consequently lead to invalidation of a trademark? Just as it is difficult to ascertain what is fair and what is not owing to the subjectivity of one’s view, accusation of bad faith is a very difficult claim to prove albeit we often think it is a clear cut case.
Arjo Wiggins Fine Papers Limited (the “Applicant”) is a leading manufacturer of creative and technical paper for use in a variety of industries and for different purposes, brought an action to invalidate a trademark registered by their former sole distributor, Transasia Fine Papers Pvt Ltd (the “Registered Proprietor”).
The Applicant supplied the Registered Proprietor with the “Curious Collection” papers for sale in India since 2002. Sometime in 2003, the Registered Proprietor came up with the idea of creating a bespoke marketing campaign targeting the creative designing industry. In 2004, the Registered Proprietor engaged a design communications company called Monkey Wrench Communications Private Limited (“Monkey Wrench”) and gave them the following instructions: (a) to invent a word that revolves around creativity and curiosity (b) wherein the invented word must trigger a question such as a “why” or “how” and that (c) further the word must be Indian but with a global connection. Based on these instructions, Monkey Wrench came up with the word “KYOORIUS”, which is a combination of “KYOON” (meaning “why” in Hindi) and the English word “curious”.
Using Trademarks as your Competitive Advantage
By P. Kandiah
Trademarks indicate the source of the product or service to a customer. That is the primary role of a trademark. However, trademarks have come to play a very important role in today’s business world. How is a manufacturer of products to attract the attention of a customer whose attention is drawn by hundreds of similar products that he faces everyday? Just imagine that you are manufacturing a special formulation of body lotion or shampoo. In the supermarket shelves, there are dozens of brands of lotions and shampoos. What makes the customers choose your product? Is it the price, the packaging, the quality of the product or some other factor? No doubt all these factors play a role in the selection process but the brand (trademark) plays a vital role, arguably the most important role.