Dr Stanley Lai

Head of Intellectual Property & Technology, Allen & Gledhill LLP

Topic Synopsis

Protecting Your Brand From Global Competition

Acute awareness of the laws and regulations that govern the country your business operates in is one of the foundations of staying on the right side of the law. That knowledge alone however, may not be enough to ensure the integrity of your brand. Breaking into a new market opens up more business opportunities, but it also exposes your brand to more intense competition with an increase in the number of competitors, who may be more familiar with the local business scene. Let Dr Lai provide you with knowledge from a legal perspective on how you can protect your brands by ensuring your intellectual property rights.

Biography

Dr Stanley Lai is Head of Intellectual Property & Technology. Stanley practises corporate and commercial litigation as well as intellectual property and information technology law, with a particular emphasis on e-commerce transactions, telecommunications regulatory compliance, intellectual property and technology litigation, licensing (including open-source licensing), franchising and on-line and off-line enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting. He regularly advises a large group of local and foreign clients on branding strategy, trade mark portfolio management and trade mark dilution and re-branding. Stanley’s practice has also extended to advising bio-medical companies on compliance issues and he has delivered and written papers on the patenting of the life sciences. He also maintains an active onshore and offshore litigation practice and is a well-known specialist for dispute resolution and management in the fields of trade marks, patents and copyright.

Stanley is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Law Faculty and Faculty of Engineering of the National University of Singapore. He also sits on the panel of adjudicators for the resolution of domain name disputes under the Singapore Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. He has been appointed as an independent director of Singapore Tech Engineering Ltd (SGX-listed) and ST Aerospace Ltd. He also serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the Intellectual Property Academy of Singapore. He is also a member of the Professional Affairs Committee (of the Singapore Academy of Law) and currently serves in various Chapters that have been formed under this committee.

Stanley has published extensively on the topic of intellectual property and information technology law, as well as written articles for a number of journals and legal publications. He authored a book entitled The Copyright Protection of Computer Software in the United Kingdom (Hart Publishing, 2000). His loose-leaf work, the ‘Intellectual Property’ Volume of Singapore Precedents & Forms (LexisNexis, 2005) was published in February 2005. He also contributed to the Singapore section of the Encyclopedia of International Commercial Litigation (Kluwer Law International, 2009) and published an article entitled “Securitise your IP Rights in Asia – Trends and Future Expectations” in Managing IP (Euromoney Legal Media Group, 2009).

Stanley graduated from the University of Leicester with an LLB (Hons) degree in 1992. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1993. He obtained an LLM from the University of Cambridge in 1994 and was called to the Singapore Bar in 1995. Stanley then commenced his PhD research at the University of Cambridge in the field of technology law and computer software copyright and completed his doctorate in three years. He is the first Singapore-born lawyer to have been conferred a PhD in Law from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining Allen & Gledhill, he was a partner in the Intellectual Property & Technology department at another leading law firm in Singapore.