Deterrence - The Way To Go For Offences Involving Trade Mark Infringements

Deterrence - The Way To Go For Offences Involving Trade Mark Infringements

Quek Siew Kim and Goh Soo Imm Esther of Cigar Affair were convicted for selling or having in their possession for trade, boxes of cigars which falsely bore the trade marks 'Cohiba' or 'Partagas'.

Quek and Esther operated a retail outlet in the lobby of a five-star hotel where they displayed counterfeit goods and genuine goods together.? They had hoped that this would give the impression that the counterfeit goods were indeed genuine.? Their customers included reputable hotels like Fullerton, Intercontinental Hotel and Ritz Carlton.? They were also the authorised retailer of the complainant, Pacific Cigar Company (Singapore) Pte Ltd.

In sentencing them, the Magistrate adopted the approach by the High Court in PP v Poh Kim Video Pte Ltd [2004] 1 SLR 373 - that there was nothing in the Copyright Act that prevented the court from regarding a box set of a single drama series comprising 18 VCDs as an "article" for the purpose of sentencing.? In this case, the Magistrate opined that it was fair to regard each box containing 25 or 30 cigars as a "good" and not each loose?cigar as a?"good".? The total number of infringing goods dealt with by Quek and Esther were 1,625 and 1,677 cigars respectively and each was sentenced to 6 weeks' and four weeks' imprisonment and fines of $70,000 and $74,000 respectively, close to the maximum of $100,000.

The court confirmed, through the sentence meted out, the sentencing policy in offences involving infringement of trade marks - that the dominant sentencing consideration is one of deterrence to support the strong on-going efforts to promote Singapore as a regional intellectual prepoerty hub and to safeguard Singapore's reputation as a country that investors and owners of goods who have invested heavily in research, design, production and marketing can count on for protection of their intellectual property rights.