Singapore's Ku De Ta Under Fire

A five year legal battle over the intellectual property rights of the Ku De Ta brand in Singapore has come to a head.
Located at the iconic Marina Bay Sands the Lion City club has reportedly been given two weeks to cease using the name.
As reported by the Straits Times, the owners of the Bali beach club Ku De Ta won a significant legal victory which essentially required the Singapore entity to return the local trade name registration and account for all royalty income earned.
Caught up in the dispute has been L Capital Asia which is the private equity arm of LVMH, who bought over the brand from a company controlled by a Hong Kong entrepreneur.
Intellectual property right in Asia's hospitality sector are not a new issue.
In the 1990's CDL Hotels lost the rights of their flagship brand Millennium in a high-profile legal squabble.
Over the years the Hilton brand in Indonesia, Shangri-La's initial Philippine venture and ACCOR also in the same country had protracted disputes over intellectual property.
For now the Marina Bay Sands outcome remains unknown though industry experts say that a compromise solution may be possible given the massive income stream the club is producing.
As for businesses the lesson learned is that protecting trade names remains a fundamental best practice for any organization great or small.
To read the article in the Straits Times <link>http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/local-club-cannot-use-ku-de-ta-name-court-20150528#xtor=CS1-10*CLICK</link>