Cruz Marcelo & Tenefrancia’s Senior Partner and Head of its Intellectual Property Department Susan Villanueva shares her insights in an article in Asia IP regarding the trademark dispute between Filipino businessman Victor Martin Soriano and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, through their legal representative, Cobblestone Lane LLC, intend to oppose Soriano’s Philippine trademark application for the mark “ARCHEWELL HARVATERA” for cosmetics and fragrances which was filed with the Philippine Intellectual Property Office on 08 July 2020. Notably, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s non-profit organization is named Archewell. It has been reported that the name of the non-profit organization was announced sometime in April 2020 and they have filed or intend to file trademark applications in different countries.
In order to provide an overview of the intellectual property issues involved, Susan discussed in the article intellectual property concepts such as the first-to-file rule, well-known marks, the necessity of conducting a trademark search prior to registration, and the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks.
Cruz Marcelo & Tenefrancia was recently named Philippines Copyright Firm of the Year in the 2020 Asia IP Awards, the 6th time it has received this distinction, as it has been recognized from 2014-2018. It has also been consistently shortlisted by Asia IP for the Philippines Trademarks Firm of the Year and Philippines Patents Firm of the Year awards.