Thursday, July 4, 2019

Malaysians Can File International Trademark

YB Chong Chieng Jen, deputy minister of Domestic Trade introduced the long awaited Trademarks Bill 2019 in parliament on  9 April 2019. The Bill introduced several internationally practiced measures to improve trademark recognition in Malaysia. The bill was passed on 1 July 2019.

Malaysians can file a single international trademark application to designate 121 countries and territories which are members of Madrid Protocol. Before the introduction of Madrid Protocol, trademark owners need to spend time and money to file applications in multiple countries which incur translations and hiring or representative in each country.

Screenshot of Nestle spokesman (Source: WIPO)

"I encourage all companies to use the Madrid System as much as they can," exclaimed a Nestle spokesman.

"The most effective global trademark system for the borderless network era," remarked a Sony representative.

There are over 1.3 million trademarks registered in the Madrid System, according to World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO).

In 2018, US based applicants (8,825) filed the largest number of international trademark applications followed by  Germany (7,495), China (6,900), France (4,490) and Switzerland (3,364). Novartis AG (174) heads the list of top applicant, followed by L'Oreal (169), Daimler (129), Apple (87) and Henkel (86).

The most popular class of goods relate to computers and electronics (10.1%) followed by business services (8%), technological services (6.7%), education and leisure services (4.8%) and apparel (4.3%).

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