Pre-filing Concerns
TRADE MARK
The applicant need not have used the trademark prior to filing. An application may be filed based on the applicant’s intent to use.
If the applicant does not intend to use the trademark at all, and the trademark is to be used by a body corporate about to be formed, the applicant must assign the trademark to the new body.
If the applicant has authorized another person to use the trademark, the applicant should make a registered user application and have that person registered as a registered user soon after the trademark is registered.
The following words / representations are prohibited from registration:-
"To counterfeit this is a forgery"; "Registered Trade (or Service) Mark"; "Bunga Raya"; representations of the hibiscus, the Malaysian King or Ruler of a State, any royal palace or a Federal or State Government Building; "ASEAN", the ASEAN logotype; "Red Crescent", "Geneva Cross"; representations of the Red Crescent, the Geneva Cross, red crosses, and the Swiss Federal Cross; certain coats of arms or emblems; royal, imperial or national flags.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
The design must be new at the priority date to be registered.
'New' means not previously disclosed to the public in Malaysia or elsewhere OR not forming the subject of an earlier Malaysian design registration.
Even where the design has been made known it may still be new if the disclosure was made under certain circumstances such as:
- in an official or officially recognized exhibition, or
- as a result of an abuse of the applicant’s rights
within a period of 6 months preceding the filing date.
Designs that are contrary to public order or morality cannot be registered.
Consent is needed for any design bearing a portrait of the Malaysian King or Ruler of a State, or the reproduction of the armorial bearings, insignia, orders of chivalry, decorations of flags of any country, state, city, town, society, body corporate, institution or person.