Sok Moi

Formerly an Allen & Gledhill IP partner credited with building an award-winning team, Sok Ling is an all-rounded intellectual property lawyer with 20 years of law firm experience coupled with in-house MNC matrix exposure. She is a trusted IP adviser to multinational corporations, government-linked companies, universities, research institutions as well as small-and-medium-sized enterprises and start-up companies. She is adept at providing sound, practical and creative business and legal solutions. She is an adjunct associate professor with the National University of Singapore (NUS) and teaches IP law to postgraduate engineering students.

Sok Ling has substantial experience in developing IP and branding strategies for her clients, for whom she regularly conducts IP audits and provides brand clearance and freedom-to-operate opinions. She regularly assists companies to establish and review their IP management frameworks to better utilize and leverage IP assets for business. An expert in the prosecution of trade mark, patent and design applications, Sok Ling manages worldwide IP portfolios for leading household names from diverse industries.

Sok Ling is adept at reviewing, negotiating and preparing a wide range of commercial documentation with an IP focus, such as IP transfer and licensing, distributorship and franchise, R&D collaboration agreements. She has undertaken due diligence on IP assets in high profile merger and acquisition and joint venture transactions.

Sok Ling has a wealth of practical experience in contentious IP work, and has led many cases to successful resolution to the satisfaction of her clients. She began her legal career with a high profile police raid action simultaneously targeting several retail shops dealing in counterfeit softwares that made headline news. Since then, she has represented IP rights owners in trade mark opposition, revocation and invalidation proceedings, in domain name recovery proceedings as well as in IP litigation and enforcement actions involving Anton Piller Order and police raid. She is an expert at coordinating regional anti-counterfeiting investigative enforcement action.

A professionally-trained and accredited mediator, Sok Ling has an impressive track record of resolving domestic and cross-border business, agency, distributorship, tenancy, employment, consumer, trade mark, copyright and patent disputes over the past decade, and maintaining a near-perfect resolution rate in recent years. She has the honour of being appointed sole mediator for one of the first IP disputes filed under the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) mediation scheme, successfully achieving full settlement within a single session for the litigating parties. She also has the honour of successfully conducting and resolving the first-ever fully virtual mediation in Singapore (and perhaps the region) involving ten participants during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

A prominent member of the legal fraternity, Sok Ling has been appointed to various expert panels and professional committees. In her capacity as chairperson of the trade marks committee, she has represented the Law Society of Singapore (LSS) in making legislative review recommendations to the Singapore government. She is the founding vice-president of the Institute of Singapore Trade Mark Agents (ISTMA). She has been appointed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to its panels of expert adjudicators, domain name arbitrators and neutrals. She has also been appointed by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) to its domain name dispute resolution panel. She sits on the panel of mediators with Singapore Mediation Centre (SMC), Singapore International Mediation Institute (SIMI), Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), WIPO, LSS and Benchmark International Mediation Centre (BIMC). Over the years, she has actively contributed to the work of international IP organizations such as International Trademarks Association (INTA) and International Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (AIPPI), including authoring and presenting scientific papers on "Copyright: Safe Harbour for Internet Service Providers" and "Copyright in Artificially Generated Works" to the international assembly. She has been invited to mentor young aspiring entrepreneurs under the Republic Polytechnic (RP) industry mentorship programme. Sok Ling currently holds the record of being the youngest individual to be named as Singapore's leading intellectual property practitioner by Who's Who Legal, a well-known international publication. Her firm has been voted Asian-MENA Counsel Singapore IP Firm of the Year.

A strong believer in volunteerism and a consumer rights advocate, Sok Ling regularly speaks at community education and outreach events organised by CASE and actively participates in discussions on consumer law reforms. She is a familiar face on national television. Being the owner of an energetic rat terrier-hound cross, who believes that canine companions are as much a part of family, Sok Ling is passionate about dog welfare issues and is keen to witness a kinder and more dog-friendly Singapore society in the near future. In her spare time, she fosters rescue puppies for Save Our Street Dogs (a registered charity with Institute of Public Character status). She serves on the central committee of CASE (a non-profit non-governmental organization) and has served on the board of Cat Welfare Society (a registered charity with Institute of Public Character status).