Malaysia | MyIPO’s Operating Guidelines and Practice Direction during MCO 3.0

On 28 May 2021, the Malaysian Prime Minister announced that Malaysia will enter a total nationwide lockdown for all social and economic sectors from 1-14 June.

Following the announcement, the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (“MyIPO”) issued its operating guidelines during the total lockdown¹, and made variations to its Practice Direction No. 2/2020². The variations to the Practice Direction take effect from 1 June 2021 onwards.

There are several notable variations that were made to the Practice Direction, amongst which are:

1.       It is now possible to file a notice of opposition or counterstatement with the Registrar.

The variation made to the Practice Direction allows an opponent to file a notice of opposition and its statement of grounds by way of an email.

The applicant for a trademark which is being opposed can also now file a counterstatement by way of an email.

Payment of the prescribed fee can be made through instant online transfer.

2.       An applicant for a trademark registration, opponent, registered proprietor may file or serve a document to the Registrar by way of an email.

Following the variation made to the Practice Direction, an applicant for a trademark registration is now able to file or serve the Registrar documents which are not subject to any payment of the prescribed fee. Therefore, a reply to the Registrar’s objection letter and a written representation to a provisional refusal can now be filed by email to nopaymentcd@myipo.gov.my.

Any opponent or applicant for a registration of a trademark may now file evidence in support of opposition or other documents under the opposition proceedings by way of an email to nonpaymentoppo@myipo.gov.my.

3.       An applicant for the registration of a trademark or registered proprietor may now file or serve any application to Court on the Registrar by way of an email.

 4.      The following forms and their corresponding payment may now be filed according to the procedures set out in the Practice Direction 2/2020: