One of our clients, a leading European manufacturer of automotive brake systems for high-performance cars and motorcycles, was plagued by counterfeiting problems in Thailand, substantially affecting their business in the jurisdiction. The client is well-recognized by consumers worldwide, including in Thailand, and once a brand has achieved a high recognition factor among consumers, there are always copycats in the market that will try to use the brand’s well-recognized reputation to deceive consumers and gain profits from poor-quality imitations.    

As one of the most valuable assets of a successful business, a trademark is increasingly recognized as an important intellectual property right to be protected against potential infringers. This has led to a growing number of disputes in Thailand, as the increased recognition of marks inevitably leads to claims of overlapping rights. Normally, trademark-related disputes concern the issue of which party has the better right to a trademark—especially when opposing parties’ trademarks are identical or confusingly similar.

At the end of June 2019, Taylor Swift took to social media to express her dismay over the purchaser of her former label who now owns the rights to her master recordings. While it is common for artists to not own their master recordings, fans were surprised to learn that one of the world’s biggest pop stars had few legal grounds to dictate who controls her master recordings.

Websites offering pirated content can inflict tremendous damage on copyright holders, but due to the simplicity of sharing digital content in today’s high-speed, always-connected online environment, copyright protection poses serious challenges to both rights holders and government authorities.