Responding to trademark refusal in Laos – Some takeaways

Under Laos IP Law, a mark cannot be merely descriptive. The idea behind preventing people from obtaining trademark protection for descriptive marks is that that individuals or commercial entities should not be allowed to claim exclusive trademark rights in descriptive words that competitors may need to use when describing their own goods/services. As a result, trademarks that comprise commonly descriptive (or generic) words are usually prohibited from being registered by the Laos IP Office. In practice, there are not uncommon instances where trademark applications face refusal/rejection based on an alleged descriptiveness of goods/services. However, those marks are not, in fact,...