By: Dr. Hem Sras, Dean for College of Law

The College of Law (CoL) at The University of Cambodia (UC) held a distinguished guest lecture on “Intellectual Property – International Themes and Canadian Perspectives” for students on November 5, 2018. This lecture was given by Ron Faggetter, Barrister and Solicitor, at SMART&Bigger, Intellectual Property and Technology Law. There were around 60 students who attended this lecture.

According to his lecture, Mr. Faggetter focused on the basic concepts of intellectual property and practicing laws in Canada and internationally. He covered the five types of intellectual property such as Trademarks, Patents, Industrial Design, Copyright, and Trade Secrets. He explained them in a simple and easy way for students to understand them.

Trademark is a mark, which can be a word or a design, to distinguish a company’s goods or services from those of others. Trademarks can be registrable if it is capable of being distinguishable and cannot be confused with other marks registered in the same country. A patent is an invention, for example, or a machine, method, drug, etc., and its purpose is to promote innovation. Patents can be registrable only if it is novel, not obvious, and useful. Industrial design is a design applied to a mass-produced article. Generally, it is registrable if it is novel, not obvious, and appeals to the eye. All of these types of intellectual property gain rights by registration.

However, some intellectual properties are not registered but are still protected by law. For example, copyright is rights provided for a work such a song, book, movie,
photograph, poem, computer program, etc. It gains rights on creation if it is original and has some minimal creativity. Copyright is possible to register, but not often done. However, they are protected by law. Likewise, trade secrets refers to information that is not generally known; namely it is confidential, for example, and can be a secret manufacturing process inside a factory, customer lists, etc. Trade secrets are not possible to register, but they are still protected and punished by law if someone violates them.

Besides these, Mr. Faggetter covered the aspects of laws governing intellectual property rights in Canada and abroad. For regional and global protection of intellectual property rights, there are a number of important international treaties such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Paris Convention, Berne Convention, Madrid Agreement and Protocol, Patent Co-operation Treaty, and Hague Agreement. When a dispute occurs, these instruments are raised for consideration and resolution. He also stressed about the remedies concerning the infringement of intellectual property rights such as damages, punitive damages, accounting of profits, injunction, delivery up and destruction, and costs.

Students and participants learned a lot about the intellectual property rights from his lecture. They asked Mr. Faggetter a number of questions, and he responded to their questions informatively. The lecture and discussion went smoothly. In the end, the College of Law gave a souvenir to Mr. Faggetter for spending his precious time to give a lecture to students at College of Law at The University of Cambodia. The session ended in friendly group photos.