With INTA’s 148th Annual Meeting set to begin in London, Walter Chia, its chief representative officer for Asia-Pacific, weighs in on what’s shaping IP across the region.
As the global intellectual property (IP) community gathers in London for the 2026 International Trademark Association (INTA) Annual Meeting from 2-6 May, more than 9,550 IP professionals attending will focus on the opportunities and challenges shaping brand protection worldwide.
Walter Chia, INTA’s chief representative officer (CRO) for Asia-Pacific based in the association’s Singapore office, has played a key role during the past three years in strengthening engagement on IP enforcement, supporting capacity-building initiatives, and fostering greater cross-border co-operation at a time when IP issues are becoming more closely intertwined with trade, technology and geopolitics.
Speaking to Asia Business Law Journal, Chia shares his perspectives on the most pressing IP challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region, INTA’s ongoing response to these developments, and the key issues the association hopes will garner greater international attention at this year’s annual meeting.
Asia Business Law Journal: What are some of the biggest IP-related issues and challenges impacting the Asia-Pacific at the moment?
Walter Chia: When I last spoke to 含羞草社区 in 2024, e-commerce counterfeiting, brand restrictions, uneven data privacy practices, and the misperception that fakes “lower the cost of living” were the centre of gravity. Two years on, those problems have not gone away, but three larger forces now sit above them and shape how brand owners need to think about IP in the region.
The first is geopolitical and trade fragmentation. Section 301 tariffs, “China+1” supply-chain reconfiguration, sanctions regimes and divergent Indo-Pacific alignments are forcing rights holders to revisit where their IP is registered, where it is enforced, and how it is monetised. Trademark portfolios that once travelled smoothly across regional supply chains now face more friction.
The second is the rapid mainstreaming of artificial intelligence, both as a tool for brand protection (image recognition, listing monitoring, predictive enforcement) and as a source of new legal questions (training data, generative outputs, deepfake brand abuse, and AI-mediated commerce). Vietnam’s Amended IP Law, effective from 1 April 2026, is one of the first in Asean to codify rules on the use of publicly accessible IP-related data for AI training and on intermediary liability for digital platforms, a direction we expect more Asia-Pacific jurisdictions to follow.
The third is the structural fragmentation of digital marketplaces themselves. As I heard directly from some brand owners last March, brand protection portals across different e-commerce platforms and others remain inconsistent in their evidentiary standards, takedown speed, and recourse mechanisms.
The economics of small-parcel, cross-border trade compound the problem. What our members increasingly observe is that the platforms are no longer just where infringement happens, they are also progressively becoming the primary infrastructure through which IP rights are tracked, asserted and enforced. That structural shift deserves separate treatment, which I will come to.
Underneath all of this is the issue that animates INTA’s 2026-2029 Strategic Plan most directly: the broader public, and many policymakers, still do not fully appreciate the economic and social value of IP. Counterfeiting is a symptom; the underlying challenge is that trademarks and complementary IP rights are still too often treated as a legal compliance line item rather than as engines of consumer trust, investment confidence and economic growth.
ABLJ: How is INTA responding to these challenges, and how is it helping raise awareness of them?
Chia: Our response is anchored by our 2026-2029 Strategic Plan, which the board adopted in San Diego in May 2025, and which took effect this January. Strategic Direction I – Champion the Value of IP in Support of Brands and Consumers – has four operational components that map almost one-to-one onto what APAC needs right now: advocating for harmonisation, simplification, accessibility and integrity of IP protection; defending and enforcing IP rights; promoting and reinforcing the economic impact of IP; and embracing transformation and change.
In practical terms for the region, that translates into several lines of work. On harmonisation, our Asia-Pacific Representative Office has submitted detailed input to the Asean IPR Action Plan 2026-2035, including recommended best practices for online marketplaces drawn from INTA’s November 2023 board resolution on protecting consumers from third-party counterfeit sales.
On enforcement, we continue to convene IP offices, customs authorities, platforms and brand owners, most recently the informal brand owners meeting in Singapore in late March, which surfaced concrete pain points around portal fragmentation that we are now feeding into our platform engagements.
On the economic impact pillar, we are deliberately pivoting more of our communications and convening towards C-suite, finance and policymaker audiences, because the case for IP is most persuasive when it is made in the language of investment, jobs and consumer welfare, rather than infringement statistics alone.
On transformation, AI sits across everything we do, from our annual meeting programming to the technical work of committees examining generative AI, brand abuse, and the implications of AI-assisted creation.
Awareness-raising in APAC also means meeting members where they are. The closed-door briefing we delivered for a handful of Japanese rights holders in early April is one example of the kind of region-specific, members-only analysis we are doing more of. Public-facing channels including LinkedIn, the INTA Bulletin, and the Brand & New podcast, carry the broader message. And the Unreal Campaign continues to do critical work downstream with 14 to 23-year-old consumers, which is where attitudes towards counterfeits are formed.
ABLJ: Since taking on your role at INTA three years ago, what is the most significant change you have seen in IP enforcement and policy across APAC?
Chia: The single most significant shift is, in fact, two parallel shifts that together amount to a structural reordering of how IP works in APAC.
The first is the move – uneven but unmistakable – from treating IP as a regulatory compliance matter to treating it as economic infrastructure. When I marked my third anniversary at INTA on 3 March, I looked back at where the conversation was in early 2023, and where it is now.
Three years ago, much of our regional engagement focused on improving examination quality, clearing backlogs and tightening enforcement. Those issues remain important, but the substance of what jurisdictions are now putting on the table is qualitatively different. Vietnam is a concrete near?term example of this shift. Recent amendments to its IP framework shorten certain examination timelines, broaden the scope of protection for industrial designs, and introduce new rules that expand intermediary liability for digital platforms.
They also point towards a more explicit treatment of IP rights as commercialisable knowledge assets that can be valued, traded, and used as collateral, including in relation to AI?driven and platform?based business models.
Singapore continues to position itself as an IP financing and dispute resolution hub. Japan and Korea are deepening their work on non-traditional marks and AI-related IP. Indonesia and Thailand are modernising customs recordal and online enforcement.
Three years ago, a pitch about the economic value of brands often had to be justified; today, IP offices and economic ministries across the region are asking how IP can support SME competitiveness, foreign direct investment, and innovation strategy. That is a different conversation, and it is the conversation INTA’s 2026-2029 Strategic Plan is built for.
The second shift is quieter but equally consequential: the gradual migration of IP registration, recordal and enforcement infrastructure from purely public hands into private, quasi-public and platform-based systems. South Korea is the clearest illustration. Since 2010, the Korea Customs Service (KCS) has entrusted its IP customs recordal function to the Trade-related IPR Protection Association (TIPA), a private professional organisation that now operates the IPR registration system for trademarks, patents, designs, copyrights, geographical indications and plant variety rights, manages rights-holder liaison, and supports the KCS in tech-enabled border control, including the sorting of small-parcel shipments.
The 2019 reforms there, which extended customs recordal validity from three to 10 years, were operationalised through the TIPA. The platform side of this trend is even more visible: Alibaba’s IPP platform (now in its 60th-plus iteration of governance rules and processing the substantial majority of takedown requests within 24 hours); Amazon’s Brand Registry with Project Zero and the Transparency Program; Tencent’s Brand Protection Platform on Weixin; and the proprietary portals operated by Shopee and TikTok Shop.
Layered above these are AI-driven aggregators, which sell cross-platform monitoring and enforcement as a service. In short, a meaningful share of what was once handled by IP offices, customs authorities and courts is now being managed, in the first instance, by private infrastructure.
That trend has real benefits. Speed is the most obvious: 24-hour takedown timelines are simply not achievable through public enforcement channels. So is scale: the volume of small-parcel cross-border e-commerce is beyond what any customs service can inspect manually, and platform-side AI is filling that gap.
Specialisation matters, too. The TIPA’s model lets customs officers focus on physical interdiction, while a dedicated body manages the administrative and rights-holder layer, and brand owners benefit from longer recordal terms and a more consistent interface. For consumers, this shift increases trust and ultimately has a material impact to their wallets. For brand owners, particularly those with substantial portfolios, the user experience has improved.
The trade-offs are also real, and the IP community needs to think harder about them. Platform takedown decisions sit largely outside judicial review. Counter-notification mechanisms exist but vary in quality, and due process for accused sellers is uneven across portals. Evidentiary standards, definitions of infringement, and escalation paths differ from platform to platform – exactly the fragmentation members have raised.
Cost-shifting to rights holders has its own consequences: smaller brand owners and SMEs may not have the resources to maintain a presence on every portal, which risks creating a two-tier enforcement environment. Where public functions are formally entrusted to private bodies, transparency, conflict-of-interest management, and chain-of-custody for evidence used in subsequent criminal or administrative action – all need careful governance.
There is also a longer-term question that policymakers in the region should not lose sight of: if work continues to migrate from public IP offices and customs services to private and platform infrastructure, are governments still investing adequately in the public capacity that ultimately underpins the legal validity of the whole system, and that handles the cases in, for example, offline manufacturing, criminal networks and B2B trade – areas that platforms cannot touch?
INTA’s position on this is not oppositional; we engage actively with all the major platforms and we recognise the value they contribute. But the November 2023 board resolution on protecting consumers from third-party counterfeit sales via online marketplaces, and the input we have submitted to the Asean IPR Action Plan 2026-2035, both reflect the view that platform-based IP enforcement needs a shared baseline of best practices, based on clear policies, due process, transparent appeals, Know Your Business Customer checks, trusted-flagger mechanisms, and meaningful co-operation with public enforcement. Our role under Strategic Direction I is to keep convening the right parties around that baseline.
One complication is that geopolitical developments have injected a level of unpredictability into IP enforcement that did not exist three years ago. Tariffs, export controls and trade defence measures now intersect with brand protection in ways that brand owners and counsel are only beginning to operationalise.
ABLJ: With regard to the INTA Annual Meeting, what are the most important APAC issues you hope will gain stronger global attention this year?
Chia: London from 2-6 May is INTA’s 148th Annual Meeting and given that, according to WIPO, close to 70% of all trademark filings globally take place in Asia, the regional conversation deserves a prominent global platform.
Three issues, in particular, I hope will resonate with the broader audience. First, the regulatory experimentation happening in APAC is increasingly setting precedents that will be felt elsewhere. Vietnam’s intermediary liability provisions, the ongoing maturation of China’s trademark and bad-faith filing regime, and the expanding reach of platform-based brand protection in the region are all developments that brand owners in Europe and the Americas will need to track, even if they do not file in those jurisdictions.
Less visibly, APAC is also where the governance of platform-based IP infrastructure is being worked out first. We see this reflected in the TIPA’s quasi-public-private model in South Korea, via the major Chinese platforms’ brand protection portals, and in Vietnam’s new statutory provisions on intermediary liability. The choices made in our region will certainly help shape global norms before equivalent debates fully crystallise in other regions.
Second, the geopolitical re-ordering is a brand owner issue, not just a trade policy issue. Tariffs reshape where goods are made, how they move, and where counterfeits emerge. There is still a meaningful gap in the empirical literature on how section 301 tariffs have affected Chinese trademark enforcement outcomes, and the next phase of trade policy interventions will only widen that question. The IP community has a contribution to make here that is currently underdeveloped.
Third, AI’s intersection with brands. The London programme has dedicated AI-themed sessions and APAC perspectives – from Japan’s evolving copyright and AI guidance to Singapore’s AI governance work, to Vietnam’s new statutory provisions – should be part of that global conversation rather than a footnote to it.
I would add one further point that connects directly to Strategic Direction I: we need to keep elevating the economic value narrative. APAC is where the next billion consumers are forming brand relationships; getting the IP framework right is not a parochial regional concern, it is a global one.
ABLJ: What are the key takeaways you hope APAC attendees will gain from this year’s Annual Meeting?
Chia: Three, in order of importance.
First, that the value-of-IP conversation is now the central conversation. The Strategic Plan’s first direction asks us to champion that value in support of brands and consumers, and the London programme, with its tracks on AI, IP finance, brand protection and cross-border innovation, is structured to give APAC practitioners practical tools to do exactly that with their own boards, business units and policymaker counterparts back home.
Second, that the most useful insights will often come from outside one’s home jurisdiction. 含羞草社区 IP landscape, which has its own dedicated Monday programme on 4 May, is a particularly relevant comparator for Asean practitioners thinking about scale, judicial sophistication, and digital-economy enforcement.
European developments around the Digital Services Act, the EU AI Act, and the Unified Patent Court offer reference points for the regulatory direction APAC jurisdictions are increasingly considering. The point is to come back with frameworks and arguments, not just contacts.
Third, and this is something I emphasise in every regional engagement, the annual meeting is most valuable when treated as a working environment rather than a destination. Business development sessions, committee meetings, table topics, the anti-counterfeiting workshop, and the brand-owner-only convenings are where the substantive work happens. APAC delegations that arrive with a defined set of questions and counterparts they want to engage consistently get more out of the week.
For members who cannot make London, our Asia-Pacific Representative Office will be debriefing key takeaways through region-specific channels in the weeks that follow.
ABLJ: What would you consider the key successes for INTA in APAC during your time in the CRO role so far?
Chia: I would frame these as institutional rather than personal achievements, because they reflect the work of the Asia-Pacific Representative Office, our regional members and our committee volunteers.
First, the cadence and depth of regional engagement has materially increased even as budgets have become tighter. During the past three years we, together with our member volunteers, have: built a more consistent rhythm of IP office engagement across Asean, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India and Greater China; deepened our partnerships with regional bodies including the Asean IP Association; and increased the volume of regional roundtables, workshops and member-only convenings.
Second, on the policy input side, our submission to the Asean IPR Action Plan 2026-2035, incorporating recommended best practices for online marketplaces and reflecting our 2023 board resolution, represents one of the more substantive regional advocacy contributions in recent years. We have also continued to engage on national-level reforms, including those leading up to and even ongoing legislative reviews in Vietnam.
Third, on member experience, we have deliberately invested in the convening function, especially smaller and even closed-door ones. The Informal Brand Owner Meetings are illustrative: bringing major rights holders together with Amazon, Tencent, Shopee and TikTok Shop in a ‘safe space’ single room produced a level of practical exchange that is difficult to replicate at larger conferences.
Fourth, on the value-of-IP messaging, we have made progress in shifting at least part of our regional communications away from a purely enforcement frame and towards the economic and societal contribution of brands, though there is much more to do here and it will be a primary focus through the Strategic Plan period.
Finally, on consumer education, the Unreal Campaign continues to expand its regional reach, which matters because long-term attitudinal change is where the counterfeiting battle is ultimately won.
The honest assessment is that the region’s challenges – geopolitical fragmentation, AI’s reshaping of brand and consumer environments, persistent platform fragmentation and uneven enforcement capacity – are larger than any one organisation can resolve. INTA’s contribution is most valuable when it convenes the right stakeholders, supplies the technical and economic data, and then collaborates with members and partners to act. That is the model we will continue to build on through to 2029.
