As business bloom in its origin country, business owner would often seek to expand its reach towards neighboring countries for further milestones. Such an expansion often led to contractual delegations and obligations as one person cannot appear in several countries at the same time. Therefore, contracts such as license agreement, franchise agreement, distribution agreement, or even assignments are sought by business owner in order to delegate certain responsibility towards preferred business partners and intended supplier or purchaser. Of course, the contractual obligations signed by the owner and intended parties would protect the owner’s interests in terms of its products and services. However, the agreements itself generally would overlook the owner’s interests in terms of intellectual property rights. Even if such a clause is included within the agreement, it would be so general whereby different interpretation could be made which in turn generates loop holes. Furthermore, assuming the clause is properly drafted, such contractual obligations would still come to a conclusion upon meeting its intended lifespan unless both parties chose to prolong the contractual relationships. As such, the importance of intellectual property protection becomes an issue at hand and should also serve as an important factor to be considered for all business owners prior business expansion to any countries.

So, should you as the principal owner register your intellectual property first or simply allow your partners i.e. franchisee or local distributor to register it on your behalf under their name or business entity? Frankly speaking, unless you own an actual company in a particular country, it is often advisable and recommended to register whatever intellectual properties you owned under the name of your principal entity. Why? Because a local distributor or any contractual parties who registered “STOLE” your name as their own may not return it to you should the contract between you and them comes to an end. This has happened to many of our clients and has been causing them considerable amount of “headache”, not to mention considerable financial amount and time just to retrieve what was rightfully theirs to begin with. Henceforth, the better ways in saving yourself from all the trouble is simply register all intellectual property rights under your own before engaging anyone to sell or represent your products. At the very least inform them in regards to your intention to register it, not only it will prevent bad faith registration, it would also maintain your business relationship with whomever you entered a contract with.

If you need to know more about the trademark registration process or questions,
Please Contact Us: 03-58914846
Or Email Us: [email protected]
Website: www.nbs.com.my

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