On January 10, 2008, the National Legislative Assembly unanimously decided that Thailand should become a party to the Paris Convention for the Pro­tection of Industrial Property and the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Thailand will finally become a party to the Paris Convention, the 173rd state to do so. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs deposited its instrument of acces­sion on May 2, 2008, and the Convention will become binding upon Thailand on August 2, 2008. This article looks at the primary benefits of accession.

In March 2008, the Supreme Court rendered its judgment to affirm an earlier judgment by the Central Intel­lectual Property and International Trade Court regarding the infringement of the patented poultry feeding machine of a U.S. company, GSI Group, Inc. This article summarizes the decision.

This article summarizes the results of recent raids by Seiko Epson and SKF to seize infringing goods.

As part of the ongoing suppression of products that infringe intellectual prop­erty rights, government bureaus includ­ing ECOTEC police bureau, Customs ware­houses, and Customs bureaus at indi­vid­ual ports have organized several destruc­tion ceremonies since the beginning of 2008. This article summarizes the events.

This article describes a multijurisdictional dispute between Carabao Tawandang Company Limited and Red Bull GmbH, both of which are large producers of energy drinks. Red Bull launched oppositions and cancellations against Carabao Tawandang’s Buffalo Device trademark in a number of countries, but the dispute was eventually settled amicably.

Trademark owners frequently choose to include a geographical name in their marks because it effectively draws public attention and is easy to remember. Under the current Thai practice, however, the Registrar will strictly enforce the legal provisions prohibiting registration of a geographical name as a trademark. The restrictions on geographical names are extremely onerous, and the successful registration of such names is therefore quite difficult. For trademark owners, only two exceptions to this practice remain.

This article describes a 2007 case in which the Board of Patents again rendered a decision affirming that only the shape or appear­ance of a product design shall be taken into consideration when deter­mining patentability. It is not necessary for a product design to have an improved or developed function as this does not reflect the patentability of the product design.

On July 19, 2005, the Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) issued a regula­tion governing recordation of well-known marks, and from August 1, 2005 it started accepting applications for recordation of well-known marks. As of April 2008, more than 180 appli­cations have been filed for well-known mark recordation. Among these, 52% of the applications were for Thai marks and 48% were for foreign marks. The success rate of these applications is approximately 35%, which emphasizes the strict criteria used in evaluating the well-known status of a mark.