The following article by Sophie Goossens was first published here by global law firm Reed Smith. It is re-published here with Reed Smith's permission.
Ownership, a legal concept almost as old as humanity, is being tested by the advent of the metaverse - an always-online, persistent, spatial 'second' world. The staggering rise in popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) demonstrates how mu
From pop culture IP news to outrage over recipe plagiarism, these were the stories our readers loved this year.
1. Creator of Netflix sensation Squid Game accused of plagiarism
Shortly after Squid Game became a global streaming blockbuster, the show's creator-director Hwang Dong-hyuk was accused of plagiarising As The Gods Will, a 2014 Japanese movie.
2. By creating her own IP, model-t
The continued growth of e-commerce means that counterfeit products which were once sold on the streets in the dark of night can now be purchased on the world’s most popular retail platforms. Bharat Kapoor – Vice-President, Online Brand Protection, for authentication and information services firm Authentix – shares more about how to tackle this problem.
This conversation with PitchMark managing
The Copyright Bill tabled in Singapore’s Parliament on July 6, 2021, came into force in November. What were the factors that spurred these amendments, and what do they mean for creators and their clients? Lam Chung Nian – who heads the Intellectual Property, Technology & Data Group at Singapore’s WongPartnership law firm – shares more.
This conversation with PitchMark managing partner Mark
John Eastwood – founding partner of Eiger Law and head of the firm’s intellectual property and technology practice – has extensive experience counseling clients on IP matters and more, both within Asia and on both sides of the Strait in Greater China. As chair of the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan Intellectual Property Rights Committee, he has also worked closely with the European Commission,
Michael Williams heads the intellectual property group at Australian law firm Gilbert + Tobin, and played an instrumental role in advocating for the introduction of site blocking under Australian copyright law.
In this conversation with PitchMark legal advisor Frank Rittman, he elaborates on how Australian legislation deals with Internet service providers whose networks are used by their custom
Counterfeit products are the bane of many industries, and most of these products are manufactured in and distributed from Asia. What can companies do to protect and enforce their intellectual property rights?
Andrew Bradshaw is the President of the Asian Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, an organization that coordinates IP investigations for some of the world’s leading brands, and h
The implementation of the European Union’s 2019 Digital Single Market Directive, which is the new legislative act adopted by the European Union to adapt copyright to the evolving digital environment, remains in varying states of implementation among its 27 member nations.
In this discussion, Ted Shapiro – partner and head of the Brussels office of Wiggin, a law firm that specializes in media,
A partner and head of IP at TSMP Law Corporation, Adrian Tan brings a unique perspective to the field of IP law, since he first made his name as a creator of IP. As a young man in Singapore, he wrote the best-selling novels The Teenage Textbook and The Teenage Workbook. Through these early book deals, he began to understand intellectual property.
As a lawyer, Adrian now helps others protect th
Artificial intelligence – and facial recognition technology in particular - has become an essential component of law enforcement due to its increased efficiency in identifying suspected criminals and missing persons using enhanced imaging data.
In this conversation, Jay Jhaveri – Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, of Captis Intelligence – discusses ongoing pace of rapid developments in AI technol
The Sex and the City franchise is set for yet another go at the zeitgeist via a 10-episode series titled And Just Like That. Leading ladies Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis are reprising their roles, while Kim Cattrall is not returning this time. But while this core four are probably most associated with Sex and the City these days, it is author Candace Bushnell who made this
Prevention is better than cure. That’s why when we buy a vehicle, we buy an insurance plan for it too. But what safeguards do innovators have when it comes to their ideas?
That’s where PitchMark comes in. Idea theft is a problem that many innovators face, and the financial loss and hurt feelings that arise from seeing your ideas copied by others without consent, credit and compensation can be
When it was released in 1994, Pulp Fiction was lauded for its innovative breaking of the chronological order, its distinctive dialogue, and for break-out performances from Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and John Travolta. It was one of the movies that propelled the 1990s wave of indie cinema, and its writer-director Quentin Tarantino became one of Hollywood’s most celebrated auteurs.
And it l
The fashion world is mourning the passing of Virgil Abloh, the 41-year-old artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection, from cancer.
He leaves behind a formidable legacy. When he began his tenure at Louis Vuitton in 2018, Abloh – the son of Ghanaian immigrants who had made their new home in the United States – became the first black man to take on the artistic direction of that fa
African fashion designer Bayanda Khathini, who specialises in high-end traditional beaded wedding dresses, has sent a letter of demand to Sello Medupe, the owner of fashion label Scalo. The issue: Khathini believes that a dress Scalo designed for former Miss South Africa, Tamaryn Green, copies a dress designed by Khathini in 2019.
Khathini asserts that his unique aesthetic style is due to his
PitchMark deters the theft of your concepts, creations, proposals, business plans, music — basically, any ideas that you conceive and want to protect as your own when submitting these ideas for pitches to potential clients. Read more here about how the PitchMark Certificate helps you to do this.
Your idea ownership gains another layer of protection when you opt to appear on PitchFeed. This sect
With the movie House of Gucci opening this week, the Italian fashion house is in the spotlight for the passionate vendettas that occurred back when the company was a family-owned business. The current Gucci, however, is now owned by a French luxury-goods conglomerate, and it knows a good branding opportunity when it sees one. The company opened up its archives to the movie’s production team, and t
Everybody gets upset when their ideas get stolen, and if that idea happens to be a beloved national dish, then get ready for sparks to fly. Perhaps because food is intimately tied to notions of cultural identity, improper culinary appropriation – or the perception of it – tends to make people extremely salty and the ensuring furore extra spicy.
Recently, the government of Valencia – the region
All innovators want to benefit from their original ideas. To do so usually involves discussing or pitching the idea with others, in order to get funding, marketing, or feedback.
Unfortunately, this opens up innovators to the risk of idea theft. Copyright protection mechanisms do exist, but they can be costly and cumbersome. Here’s where PitchMark can help.
When innovators register their id
She shot to fame by appearing in the music video for the song “Blurred Lines”. Now, model-actress Emily Ratajkowski is also an author whose debut memoir, My Body, comes out this month.
Her book arrives on the heels of an essay she wrote for New York magazine in 2020. Titled “Buying Myself Back”, the piece – which went viral – detailed several harrowing instances where she tried to gain control
