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My marketing colleagues want us to add logos to our product to show that we use fair traded, organic, ethically-sourced ingredients. What do I need to know about using these kinds of marks?

Apple Inc applied to the Swiss Trade Mark Office to register the word mark IPHONE for broadly worded goods in classes 9 and 28, the specified class 9 goods being essentially telephones and functionally related products. The Office rejected the application for the class 9 goods on the grounds that the mark IPHONE will be immediately understood by consumers as describing a telephone with internet- or information technology-related functions, and accordingly represents a non-distinctive, descriptive indication.

In late 2009, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai issued a stern announcement (Announcement 323) exhorting relevant agencies to step up the fight against counterfeit and smuggled goods in Vietnam. Announcement 323 acknowledges the improvements in IP enforcement in recent years, but notes that the results do not meet requirements and that, in the future, anti-counterfeiting and anti-smuggling actions by the authorities must be strengthened to protect the health of the people and prevent a negative influence on the investment environment. In particular, Announcement 323 notes that more resources and reforms are needed to shore up weaknesses in preventing smuggling and inferior goods from entering through the border points into Vietnam.

When the USPTO issues a refusal to register a trade mark application based upon a likelihood of confusion with an existing third party registration covering a similar mark, one option that the owner of the refused application has available to it is to approach the owner of the cited registration to obtain a Consent to Registration. A Consent to Registration is essentially a written acknowledgement by the owner of a trade mark registration, which can be submitted to the PTO, attesting that there is no likelihood of confusion between the mark that is the subject of the existing registration and the mark that is the subject of the pending application.

The James Bond series of movies have enjoyed worldwide recognition all over the world for many years. However, the 007 trade marks were not given famous mark status in Taiwan when they were used to oppose registration of a local trade mark comprising the same wording 007 and a similar pistol device in respect of timepieces in the year 2000. The Administrative Court then had the following findings:

With a significantly higher level of regulation over trade mark licences introduced by the 2007 trade mark law, we might have expected to see an increase in the number of licence recordals, but that is not apparent from the number of licences published in the official journal.

The conduct of a raid by authority of a judicial search warrant, preceding a criminal action for trade mark infringement or unfair competition is perceived by many trade mark owners as one of the more effective means of combating counterfeiting, because it allows for immediate seizure of the infringing goods and there is the threat of possible imprisonment of the infringers. Therefore, a raid yielding negative results is disappointing not only to the IP owners but also to the lawyers and enforcement agencies involved. It also emboldens the alleged infringers to file a suit for damages against the search warrant applicants. This was the situation in the case of Arthur Del Rosario and Alexander Del Rosario vs Hellenor Donato, Jr. and Rafael V. Gonzaga (docketed under GR no 180595), decided by the Supreme Court on March 5 2010.

There are many reasons why counterfeiting should be taken seriously. Fake goods pose a threat to public health and safety. Further, counterfeit products cost brand owners millions of dollars each year in lost revenue.

Nanotechnology has sparked activities in seemingly unrelated fields. The Patent Office faced a growing number of applications claiming trade marks that incorporate the word "nano". The businesses try not to be behind the time and swarm to stake a claim to anything nano. The number of nano trade marks is about or more than 400 and almost all of them have been registered in the recent past.

Traditionally, the Australian Patent Office carries out the majority of substantive examinations of Singapore patent applications on behalf of the Singapore Patent Office. Lately, however, the European-based patent offices of Austria, Denmark and Hungary are increasingly carrying out substantive examinations of Singapore patent applications.