Thailand's Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) rolled out a handy new feature on 29 September: it has wired the Department of Business Development's (DBD) company-registration data into its official trademark search system, IP Search — so when you look up a trademark whose owner is a legal entity, you can check in the same place whether that company is still active, or has been dissolved, wound up, struck off or left dormant.
Search a mark, and confirm the owner still exists
Here's how it works: after searching a trademark at search.ipthailand.go.th, if the owner is a legal entity the results page shows a "check legal-entity status" link that connects straight to DBD's DataWarehouse+ company register. The system flags the statuses to watch for: dissolved with liquidation not yet completed, dissolved with liquidation completed, and struck off or dormant (which can sometimes be restored to the register later). The service is free and available 24 hours a day.
Why this small step matters for trademark deals
DIP is blunt about the purpose: before an assignment, licence or other dealing, confirm the rights holder's real status, to cut the risk that a mark belonging to a defunct or dormant business is misused — for instance by someone posing as the owner, or using the mark without any right to it. For a buyer, a licensee or a due-diligence team, it means seeing the trademark and the company behind it through a single door.
J&C recommends making an entity-status check a standard step in any Thai trademark assignment, licence, M&A due diligence or dispute: look not only at the mark's legal status (registration, renewal, opposition) but at whether the owner company on the register still exists. If the counterparty has been dissolved or struck off, build that into the deal structure, the chain of title and any later recordal — where needed, require the entity to be restored first or obtain a proper authorisation — so you don't end up with an ownerless mark or a clouded title.
Source: www.thaipr.net | mgronline.com
