After the long-awaited enactment of Myanmar's new Trademark Law in 2019, the Burmese finally ushered in a new age of intellectual property rights protection. The 2019 Law signals Myanmar's important first step to improve intellectual property rights protection to international standards, and provides a more certain structure to its trademark registration regime as it emerges as one of the most exciting nations in South-East Asia for foreign investors.
Before the enactment of the new Law, there were no formal trademark registration and examination procedures in Myanmar. Trademark owners used to "register" a Declaration of Ownership with the Registrar of Deeds and publish cautionary notices regularly on Burmese newspaper to warn off other trademark infringers, but substantive examinations and oppositions were not possible before the new Law.
Starting from 1 October 2020, Myanmar's new trademark regime kicked off with a Soft Opening Period of 6 months until 31 March 2021. There are four key takeaways:-
- Myanmar is to establish a proper trademark filing system which is more akin to what we have in most other jurisdictions;
- Myanmar will switch to a "first-to-file" system as opposed to the previous first-to-use;
- Trademark owners with existing registrations should refile their trademarks by 31 March 2021; and
- New trademark filings are expected to be available 1 April 2021 onward.
In the following, we offer our insights on how trademark owners can get the most out of Myanmar's new trademark law.
