Abstract:
The recent December 2014 decision of Guy Neale v Nine Squares Pty Ltd by Singapore’s highest court, the Court of Appeal, concerned trade marks that had been registered in Indonesia and Singapore. The governing law of the dispute, however, was Australian law as that was the stipulation in the partnership agreement. The judgment was decided based on Australian trusts law with seemingly little deference to the territorial limitation of the trade marks system. It is also unfortunate that this decision impacted on the outcome of another case that was related and affected the rights of assignees of the Singapore trade mark in a negative way.