IP Australia

Now the dispute between the Super Rugby Chiefs and the PNG Chiefs NRL franchise is going to the High Court, where NZR will seek injunctions to prevent the Papua New Guinea team from using Chiefs as its name in New Zealand.

On the other side of the Tasman, IP Australia, which previously declined on three occasions to sign off on the NRL's trademark application, now says it's been accepted, pending any formal objections.

Up to now, the NRL have declined to enter into negotiations of any sort, but the Chief Executive of the Super Rugby Chiefs, Simon Grafhouse, is still hopeful that a deal can be reached.

There's still an opportunity for us to sort it out before it goes too far.

know

what that

would look like? Because my understanding is that IP Australia have now ticked off at least part of the issues surrounding the PNG chiefs using that name.

There are elements that they haven't yet ticked off because they've been hived off and put into a separate application.

good.

So the grouping of Nadine Noodles Groves, I went through IP Australia and I've trademarked that.

Oh, I like that.

What classes? Oh, geez.

The Chiefs rugby franchise has held the trademark in Australia for its name and logo since 1998.

The IP Australia has knocked back the NRL over its applications for the PNG chief's name.

The rugby franchise's chief executive, Simon Grafis, says the chiefs in Waikato are just trying to protect their brand and they have nothing against the PNG franchise.

And it's really easy for me to say there's a simple solution.

Johnny Blades has more

The Chiefs rugby franchise has held the trademark in Australia for its name and logo since 1998, and IP Australia has knocked back attempts by the NRL to register the PNG Chiefs trademark.

Rugby fans are familiar with the Hamilton-based Chiefs brand and the team's usual playing strip of red, yellow, and black.

These same colors are the colors of the PNG flag and have been widely expected to feature when the PNG side enters the NRL competition in 2028.

The Post Courier newspaper reports the Chiefs CEO, Lorna McPherson, has confirmed the launch is still on, while the National Rugby League, the NRL, continues to handle the dispute.

New Zealand Rugby had lodged concerns with IP Australia and the NRL on the PNG club's use of the name The Chiefs, as that is the name of their Waikato-based super rugby franchise.

The Chiefs are readying for their NRL debut in 2028.

And the Fiji Rugby Union has named a 68-member squad to prepare for a one-off test against Japan in October, plus the nation's championship series in November.

And, you know, the best time to do that is before any damage is done.

So hopefully we can get around a table and actually come up with a solution before the brand launch, because once that happens, that will potentially cause confusion in the market, which IP Australia has identified.

It's obvious, I guess, as to why you, as a rugby union franchise, would have concerns about a rugby league franchise also carrying the name of Chiefs.

But you're not the only ones.

There are about six other businesses, a couple in the United States, a couple in Hong Kong, one in Australia, who IP Australia say also have cause for concern.

So this seems to me a much wider issue, which begs the question why the P&G Chiefs, or more accurately the NRL, are digging their heels in and apparently refusing to compromise.

usually you'd make sure you've got freedom to operate before you go out and announce something.

When you read some of the stuff around the PNG team, there's a similar theme there too.

But right now, the franchise still doesn't own the intellectual property rights to the team's identity.

That's largely because the NRL has failed to persuade IP Australia that their brand is clearly distinct from that of the Chiefs Super Rugby team based in Hamilton, New Zealand.

However, as Richard Ewart reports, while the NRL is apparently confident that they are right on their side, two leading experts in intellectual property have told Pacific Beat the league is pursuing a high-risk strategy that could have embarrassing consequences for the PNG club and the Australian government.

When the name of the PNG team set to debut in the NRL in 2028 was announced by Prime Minister James Marape almost a year ago now, it was a very jolly affair, with no hint of a potential legal battle simmering behind the scenes.

Go the Chiefs.

[clapping] Yay.

But reality dawned when the NRL attempted to register the Chiefs name as a trademark, only to receive the first of three adverse reports from IP Australia, with the examiner declaring that a real and tangible danger of brand confusion exists.

And while the clash with the Super Rugby Chiefs has been grabbing the headlines, IP Australia has actually identified seven other trademarks in Australia, Hong Kong, and the United States that it considers to be too similar.

So how does that work exactly?

Yeah, so when a patent application is filed at IP Australia, who are the holders of patents in Australia, but the same in most other countries around the world, they'll look at the technology and decide whether the description of that invention should be kept secret from the public or not.

If you file a patent, at some stage it will be published and anyone in the public can view that description.

And it might be a description of how to turn a rifle into a machine gun.

For example, I had a case like that and the government deemed that would not be helpful to allow the general public to understand how to quickly turn a rifle into a machine gun.

And they put a secrecy order on it.

And that patent document, as it went through IP Australia, was never seen by anybody other than the owner of the patent and the patent attorney.

Yeah.