Siabon is a partner in Gilbert + Tobin's Intellectual Property group.
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 is recommended as a leading lawyer by Chambers Global 2017, Chambers Asia Pacific 2017, Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2017, Best Lawyers 2017, Managing Intellectual Property and World Trademark Review 2015. Gilbert + Tobin's Intellectual Property Team won Intellectual Property Team of the Year at 2015 Australian Law Awards and won Copyright Practice of the Year for Australia at the Asia IP Awards 2014 Awards. Siabon Seet provides invaluable support in contentious matters; no industry is too foreign and no case too complex for her.
Siabon has particular 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 is an experienced litigator with a track record of successfully representing leading clients on large scale and complex litigation including:
- 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.
Prior to joining the firm, Siabon practised as a solicitor for two years in a specialist intellectual property firm in Sydney. Siabon has also worked in the United Kingdom and completed an internship in capital litigation assisting a prominent Death Row lawyer in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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).
Assistant
Lauren Heyes
+61 2 9263 4117
lheyes@gtlaw.com.au