Industry Areas:
- Pharmaceuticals
- Resources, Mining, Oil and Gas
- Wine
- Defence & Aerospace
- Creative Industries
- E-Commerce
Educational Background:
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Laws
Master of Intellectual Property Law
Professional Experience:
Dave is the Group Head of Wrays' legal team: he is a partner in the patent and trade mark practice and a practitioner-director of the law firm. Dave was admitted to practice as a lawyer in 1995, and as a registered trade mark attorney in 1999. Dave has worked in both Japan and Hong Kong, and from 2000-2003 practiced in intellectual property, including anti-counterfeiting, through-out East Asia. Dave gained his LLM in 2000, with a thesis on parallel importation, and has over the years repeatedly lectured for undergraduates and post-graduate students at Murdoch University, and the Australian Graduate School of Management's Hong Kong branch (from 2000-2003). In 2004 and 2005 Dave helped the Asia Foundation assist the Cambodian judiciary, businesses, and government on the IP implications of Cambodia joining the WTO.
Dave was counsel in some key Australian authorities:
a. Re Laurence, as a consequence of which the Trade Mark Registrar changed the interpretation of the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act applied to trade marks for wine;
b. Re: Raytheon Company, which changed how evidence from defence industries is assessed given official secrets legislation;
c. Paramount Pictures v Hasluck, which confirmed that there is no exemplary damages for trade mark infringement in Australia;
d. Re: Wesbeam Holdings Limited, which changed how trade marks incorporating increasingly popular elements (in this case "e-") are assessed by the Trade Mark Registry.
Dave's client base includes large and small businesses: Dave's highest profile case in Australia was in successfully attacking a trade mark relating to ugg boots, the subject of a popular TV documentary called "The Good, the Bad and the Ugg Boot". Dave has specialist expertise in IP issues for the mining, defence, and pharmaceutical industries. He supervises a team of eight legal staff, all practicing intellectual property law.
As part of his ongoing professional development, Dave attended the World Intellectual Property Organisation's Advanced Domain Name Workshop in Geneva in 2011. He is presently completing a Graduate Diploma in International Copyright Law through King's College London.
Specialties;
Intellectual property, specialising in trade marks, domain names, confidentiality and copyright. Industry expertise: mining, defence, and pharmaceuticals. Languages: English and Japanese (conversational)
Dave appears before the Federal Court of Australia as counsel in trade mark, confidentiality, domain name, and copyright disputes, and before the Trade Mark Registrar as counsel in trade mark oppositions.
Professional Affiliations:
- Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia and the High Court of Australia.
- International Trade Mark Association.
- Asia Pacific Intellectual Property Law Institute.
Download a PDF version of David's profile here
