Cautionary Notices

Where businesses are not able to register any intellectual property protection under any of the above regimes (e.g. a local or foreign company that is not engaged in any form of manufacturing goods in the Maldives or which is not registered with the Ministry of Trade and Industries), then a Cautionary Notice may be published in a public newspaper informing the public of the ownership of the intellectual property. This is an extremely common practice.

The advantages of publication of a Cautionary Notice are that:

(1) it informs members of the public that a particular person/entity owns the intellectual property of specific trademarks, logos, etc.;

(2) its publication may therefore encourage potential infringers not to engage in activities that have the effect of breaching another’s intellectual property ownership (e.g. by buying/selling goods that have been produced by unauthorized third parties, or attempting to use a trademark or logo belonging to someone else; and

(3) its publication will also inform innocent third parties that are intending to engage in business with goods or services related to the particular protected trademark, logo, etc. that the intellectual property of that particular trademark belongs to someone else.

There are no specific requirements for the type of or frequency of publication of Cautionary Notices. Most companies typically place notices in the newspapers two or three times a week for a period of one or two weeks, and then renew the advertisements once a year.