Siabon Seet
PartnerBiography
Siabon is a partner in Gilbert + Tobin's Tech + IP group specialising in Intellectual Property.
She has expertise across all areas of intellectual property including copyright, patents, trade marks, designs, passing off and related trade practices law, data security and protection of confidential information. She works on a variety of enforcement matters for both national and international clients and brands across a wide range of different industries including music and entertainment, media and publishing, health care, software, consumer electronics, fashion, financial services and FMCG. Siabon has litigated cases in the Supreme and Federal Courts and at appellate level in the Full Federal Court and the High Court of Australia. Siabon also has a leading practice in the Australian Copyright Tribunal.
Siabon provides invaluable support in contentious matters; no industry is too foreign and no case too complex for her. She has expertise in finding innovative and commercial answers to legal complexities and disputes that arise in IP resulting from the digital transformation or disruption of industries, particularly in the media and entertainment space.
Siabon obtained her undergraduate degree in law at the University of Sydney and completed a Master of Laws (Honours) specialising in intellectual property at Kings' College, University of London.
Siabon is a member of the Copyright Society of Australia, Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand and the International Trade Mark Association (INTA).
Experience
Siabon's experience includes advising:
- Acting in landmark copyright infringement proceedings which have tested the boundaries of copyright law in Australia including the Cooper, Kazaa, IceTV and the Roadshow/iiNet cases. The Kazaa proceedings and subsequent global settlement was the largest ever copyright action in Australia on behalf of the Australian and international recording industries against operators of the Kazaa peer-to-peer file-sharing system.
- A number of copyright rate-setting proceedings for the music industry in the Copyright Tribunal including most recently, proceedings to determine the licence rate payable by the commercial radio industry for the online simulcast of sound recordings.
- Acting for Samsung in a comparative advertising challenge against LG in relation to 3D televisions.
- Acting for one of Australia’s leading health care companies, Primary Health Care and its executives, in brand protection, trade marks, trade practices and defamation litigation.
- Acting for Autodesk in connection with software licence enforcement and potential enforceability issues surrounding shrink wrap licensing.
- Defending multi-patent infringement proceedings in the building industry and conducting patent infringement proceedings related to patents for gaming systems.
- Trade mark and copyright infringement proceedings on behalf of a toy company in which Australia's first ever 'rolling, roving' Anton Piller orders were obtained.
- Siabon has also developed and managed a number of large anti-piracy campaigns and branding strategies, and provided advice including pre-publication clearance in relation to advertising and marketing.
Awards and Recognition
Recognised as one of the Top 250 Women in Intellectual Property in 2021
Recognised as a Leading Individual for Intellectual Property
Ranked in Band #2 for Intellectual Property: Trademark & Copyright
Ranked Gold for Enforcement and Litigation
Recognised as a Trade Mark Star - Australia
Recommended - Leading Contentious Intellectual Property Lawyers – NSW
Recognised for Intellectual Property Law, Entertainment Law and Litigation
Recognised as a leading IP Expert
“Siabon Seet, one client says, provides ‘business advice, not just legal advice, which is what businesses are looking for in external counsel these days.’ Another client says: ‘She personifies excellence, quality, commerciality and accessibility’".
“Seet has a talent for innovative problem solving in complex IP scenarios arising from industry disruption”
“Crack litigator Siabon Seet ‘offers advice of the highest quality as informed by her thorough understanding of the client’s business’. Extremely approachable, ‘one can always speak to her without being shunted to a junior lawyer’.”