Bird & Bird is delighted to welcome Gene Kwek as Managing Counsel in its Singapore IP team.
Gene joins from Infinitus Law Corporation, where he was Associate Director. His past experience also includes seven years at Baker & McKenzie.Wong & Leow and an in-house role as brand equity counsel with consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble.
Gene brings over a decade of IP law experience, with a particular focus across the spectrum of trade mark work (prosecution, portfolio management, oppositions, infringement, regulatory, advisory, commercial, transactional and due diligence). He has represented clients from a diverse range of industries in a variety of both contentious and non-contentious matters.
At Procter & Gamble, Gene handled all trade mark related matters for a stable of well-known brands across Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan and Greater China. Gene is an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore and a non-practising solicitor of England and Wales.
Co-Head of Bird & Bird's Singapore team Lorraine Tay commented: "We're very pleased to welcome Gene on board. Our consolidated Asia-Pacific IP team continues to strengthen. Gene's expertise will be a further significant step in growing our brand management practice and will be a great boost to the team as we strive towards becoming the go-to firm for brand-related work in Singapore and the wider ASEAN and Asia Pac regions."
Gene added: "I am excited to join Bird & Bird's world-renowned IP team. The firm's stronghold in IP offers a fantastic opportunity to develop my practice and I'm looking forward to working with the Asia-Pacific team to further entrench our market-leading position."
Bird & Bird continues to make strong progress in the Asia Pacific region as it consolidates after a recent period of growth – opening a new office in Australia and entering into strategic co-operations with leading local firms in Indonesia and Korea 2014, both of which gained recognition as innovative developments at the prestigious Asia FT Innovative Lawyer Awards in 2014 and 2015. The firm has also won "Law Firm of the Year" for IP & TMT at the 2015 Asia Legal Business Hong Kong Law Awards.
In addition to Gene, Bird & Bird has welcomed new Corporate partners John Shi and Shan Lai and Dispute Resolution partners Jonathan Choo and Robert Rhoda to its Asia-Pacific operation since the start of the year.
