The National Legislative Assembly of Thailand has passed the interim cabinet’s proposals regarding Thailand’s accession to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Patent Cooperation Treaty. As described in this article, these moves represent a significant step toward Thailand’s eventual accession to the Madrid Protocol.

The Trade Competition Act (TCA) seeks to maintain a fair and open market by prohibiting business operators from exerting influence through unfair trade practices. One such unfair trade practice addressed by the TCA is exclusivity. This article provides a detailed explanation of the intricacies of exclusivity under the TCA.

The Thai government wants to turn Bangkok into the fashion capital of Asia by 2012, but has yet to deal with legal-protection issues. Possible sources of protection include design patent, copyright, and passing off, but all contain ambiguities and there are no explicit safeguards for fashion designs. This article examines the tough decisions designers must face when deciding whether to do business in Thailand.

In 2002, Thailand adopted the Trade Secrets Act which contains a provision intended to safeguard the confidentiality of marketing approval data submitted to the Thai Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, the Patent Act clearly confers generic drug manufacturers with the ability to engage in various preparatory activities with a view to seeking regulatory approval before a patent for a particular protected drug has expired (i.e., a Bolar provision).

The Trade Competition Act (TCA) seeks to maintain a fair and open market by prohibiting business operators from exerting unfair influence through monopoly, exclusivity, price fixing, quantity fixing, tying/bundling, etc. If any two business operators act together to effect such conduct, they may be liable for violating the TCA, which carries a prison term of up to three years and/or a fine of up to THB 6 million per violation.

During times of economic crisis, many employers seek to terminate employees. In doing so, however, employers need to be mindful of the correct procedures and they must ensure that severance and other benefits are paid to employees. Otherwise, they face the risk of claims being filed by the employees in the Labor Court. This article looks at the employer’s obligation to provide severance, remuneration, and compensation, as well as exceptions to the requirements.

Under Thai law, a distributorship agreement is generally considered to be a type of sales agreement whereby a seller sells products to a distributor and the distributor resells the products for his own account and at his own risk to his customers. Unless the parties agree otherwise, this type of agreement is governed principally by the general principles of contract and sales provisions under the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. Does a supplier need to enter into a distributorship agreement?

Intellectual property rights have become increasingly valuable assets for many companies and often are critical to a company’s competitive capability. Therefore, it has become crucial for companies to secure ownership in IP assets created by employees in the course of their employment. In spite of this, many companies have overlooked this issue and failed to ensure that necessary agreements are put in place and that employees are properly informed of their rights and obligations with respect to IP assets created while working at the company and after termination of their employment.