Pub­li­ca­tions

Jul 31, 2024

Using the Olympics in mar­ket­ing can be legal­ly risky

Three years (rather than the usu­al four) hav­ing elapsed since the COVID-deferred 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Olympic fever has again struck in Aus­tralia as our tal­ent­ed ath­letes com­pete in the 2024 Paris Games.A major pub­lic mar­ket­ing cam­paign is out in force on Aus­tralian streets and screens. Run by the Aus­tralian…

Jul 16, 2020

Mer­i­tas — An Intro­duc­tion to Tem­po­rary Changes Affect­ing Busi­ness­es in Aus­tralia and New Zealand

Look­ing for busi­ness and legal guid­ance regard­ing COVID-19 updates and pro­grams in Aus­tralia & New Zealand? This doc­u­ment has cov­er­age across the region with mem­ber firms who are here to assist. Please vis­it any of the COVID-19 resource mate­ri­als for more com­pre­hen­sive updates.  View here…

Mar 18, 2020

Cor­po­rate Coun­sel: the Guardians of Innovation

Cor­po­rate coun­sel may not gen­er­al­ly see them­selves as the guardians of inno­va­tion in their busi­ness­es. Nonethe­less, cor­po­rate coun­sel are the cus­to­di­ans of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, which can be defined as the legal asset in innovation. We all see inno­va­tion as a crit­i­cal ingre­di­ent in a suc­cess­ful busi­ness. How­ev­er, inno­va­tion has no intrin­sic val­ue in…

Aug 5, 2019

What does a No Deal Brex­it mean for your trade marks?

Recent polit­i­cal changes in the Unit­ed King­dom have raised the prospect of a ​‘no deal’ Brex­it as a seri­ous pos­si­bil­i­ty. It is impor­tant to empha­sise that even in this sit­u­a­tion, there is like­ly to be an order­ly tran­si­tion of trade mark and oth­er intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights between the EU and the…

Apr 24, 2019

When a dis­trib­u­tor­ship ends – who gets the nam­ing rights?

Intro­duc­tion When an exclu­sive dis­trib­u­tor­ship between an over­seas prin­ci­pal and an Aus­tralian dis­trib­u­tor ends, the issue of the own­er­ship of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty gen­er­at­ed or used dur­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion peri­od should log­i­cal­ly be addressed in the dis­tri­b­u­tion agree­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this issue is often not addressed ade­quate­ly and dis­putes can arise between…

Sep 11, 2018

What Brex­it will mean for trade marks in the UK

The reports of polit­i­cal tur­moil in the Unit­ed King­dom regard­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of Brex­it has caused some con­ster­na­tion to those par­ties hold­ing reg­is­tered trade mark and oth­er intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights in the EU. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant that a prop­er per­spec­tive be main­tained with respect to any per­ceived dan­ger to such…

Jun 12, 2018

Pri­va­cy — It is every­one’s business

Even if you have no inter­est in pri­va­cy law, you would need to be liv­ing on a plan­et in a galaxy far, far away not to be aware of the GDPR. GDPR The GDPR (Gen­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion), came into oper­a­tion on 25 May 2018. Dur­ing the weeks lead­ing up to that date…

May 3, 2018

Pro­tect the Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty in your Website

In set­ting up a web­site, it is essen­tial to include stan­dard terms which address such issues as lia­bil­i­ty dis­claimers, user access terms and pri­va­cy pol­i­cy. How­ev­er, it is also impor­tant to ensure that your own intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty is ful­ly pro­tect­ed and that you do not infringe the IP rights of others. 1…

Nov 23, 2017

Brands as a Legal Asset

Intro­duc­tion Brands are an intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty asset. Unfor­tu­nate­ly they rarely appear on a com­pa­ny’s bal­ance sheet. As a con­se­quence, brands may often be inad­e­quate­ly iden­ti­fied, val­ued, pro­tect­ed and exploit­ed. Bear­ing this in mind, it is wise to insti­tute a pro­gram to pro­tect and nur­ture your brands. Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion It is impor­tant to car­ry out a reg­u­lar…

Sep 12, 2017

Trade mark pro­tec­tion against par­al­lel importers 

When an over­seas man­u­fac­tur­er exports to Aus­tralia, it may choose to set up a dis­trib­u­tor in Aus­tralia under an exclu­sive dis­tri­b­u­tion agree­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the exclu­sive Aus­tralian dis­trib­u­tor, unau­tho­rised par­ties may source and sell in Aus­tralia gen­uine prod­ucts which may have been orig­i­nal­ly man­u­fac­tured and trade marked by the over­seas man­u­fac­tur­er…