TRADE MARKS, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: THE CONCEPT OF DISTINCTIVENESS AND PUBLICI JURIS

The concept of 'distinctiveness' in the Singapore Trade Marks Act 1999 plays a very important role as gate-keeper of what should be entered unto the trade mark register. For this reason, there must be proper understanding of how the statutory provisions on distinctiveness work. The aim of this article is to unravel the knots in these provisions, and to propose a construction of these provisions that furthers the policy underlying the distinctiveness requirement—namely, publici juris.