15 October, 2016
Our Intellectual Property team in Asia is celebrating a run of success taking home the following 5 awards across our offices in China, Japan and Vietnam:
- [Lanterns2BE] International IP Firm of the Year (China Law & Practice Awards);
- Best in IP (Asialaw Asia-Pacific Dispute Resolution Award);
- Japan Trademark Firm of the Year (Asia IP) (Earlier this year we also won the Japan IP Firm of the Year from Managing Intellectual Property);
- Vietnam Copyright Firm of the Year (Asia IP); and
- International Copyright Firm of the Year (Asia IP).
The China awards are in part recognition for our ground breaking work in the field of copyright infringement for our client Blizzard Entertainment as well as market leading trademark work for TWG Tea in Hong Kong. It is also a reflection of the strength and depth of our practice. Asia-Pacific Dispute Resolution Award committee commented that “Hogan Lovells, the winner for IP firm of the year, was involved in a number of precedent setting cases in China, relating to preliminary injunctions in China. They successfully obtained the very first preliminary injunction ever to be issued by the Guangzhou Specialized IP Court.”
The Japan awards are a reflection of the leading work we do for a very long list of top tier brands which has enabled our Tokyo office’s trademark team to grow to become the largest trademark team of any international law firm in Japan our Tokyo office. We have over 100 Japanese clients in the trademark area, including 10 of Japan’s top 30 global brands (as ranked by Interbrand in Japan’s Best Global Brands & Japan’s Best Domestic Brands survey) and 8 of the top 10 listed Japanese companies by revenue.
Lloyd Parker, Head of Intellectual Property for the Asia Pacific Middle East Region commented:“We are extremely proud to receive five awards that recognise our strength and capabilities in the Asia region and how we are helping our clients reach their important commercial goals through precedent setting and market first services. Asia continues to be an increasingly important region for international businesses and we will continue to grow our teams in the region to meet and exceed the growing needs of our clients.”
About our IP team in Asia
When the going gets tough – Clients come to us for solutions to business critical issues:
- Precedent setting – We have set precedents including: winning the first interim injunction before the new Guangzhou IP court; initiating the first actions in China against retailers and hard-disk loaders of pirated software; and bringing the first trade-dress infringement case in Shanghai under the Anti-unfair Competition Law. In Vietnam we also continue to set precedents working on some of the most challenging trademark enforcement cases for some of the world’s leading brands.
- A global network that works together – Our global network is often commented on by clients as a differentiator from our competition, with Chambers Guide recently quoting one source as saying “[Hogan Lovells] really has the same ethos and connectedness the world over.” Our team in Japan regularly works with our colleagues in Asia and international supporting on multi-jurisdictional patent litigation and the management of some of the world’s largest trade mark portfolios. Our global network served us well recently in our defence against a non-practicing entity patent case, where we successfully applied strategies learnt from patent troll litigation in the U.S. to China litigation. It has also served us well as we support a client on one of the largest trademark disputes in the world, where many of our offices across the US, Europe and Asia have all been involved
- Taking a new approach – Our work for TWG Tea in Hong Kong is considered ground breaking and precedent setting as it considered areas of law never previously reviewed before the courts in Hong Kong where it reached the highest level of the Court of Final Appeal. A rare feat for a trademark case in the region.
- Tackling patent trolls/ NPE’s – Patent trolls or Non Practicing Entities (NPE’s) can be tough opponents that seriously disrupt the business of major international companies, we achieved a truly successful result for our client Daimler Mercedes Benz with no payment being made to the plaintiff. In Japan we work with some of the largest life sciences companies in the world challenging non practicing entities and generic manufacturers.
