An Interview With Mitchel Chua

What characterizes your personal and professional paths?

I started my career in a boutique IP law firm where I was a practicing lawyer and mostly handled IP prosecution and litigation matters. After several years in practice, I then decided to make the move in-house and then made the switch to a general legal counsel role. Throughout my time in-house, I noticed that I’ve always chosen companies that were IP-centric, with innovative technologies, which were the driving force behind their business. I don’t think I made a conscious decision at that time, but I realize now, retrospectively, that I was drawn by these companies’ IP.

I made another switch in my career, taking on a primary IP role for a luxury fashion group, focusing on anti-counterfeiting work, which brought me deeper into my passion for IP and up to my current position now as an IP practitioner in a technology company.

I am also an avid martial arts practitioner, and I am super passionate about Brazilian Jiujitsu. People have an impression that it is very intense and violent, but to me, it is similar to my passion for IP. Many people don’t realize that Jiujitsu is very cerebral, very methodical, and based on strategy. If you learn the moves and you practice enough, you’ll know that every attack has a defense or a counter-attack, which in turn has another response. You are always trying to outwit your opponent, and I think this is very similar to IP.

Can you explain your particular personal interest in intellectual property?

The idea of IP has always fascinated me, ever since my law school days. I had a really good IP professor, Ken Shao, who fueled my interest in IP. To me, the idea of deriving profit from an intangible and abstract asset really captivated me. Intellectual property is not a physical property, it is nebulous, like an idea floating in the ether, but it can actually be monetized. IP has the potential to be so valuable that it can even form the core of a business or a company. It dictates what the company does and what the company offers to the public, in the form of an innovative product, and I thought that was just mesmerizing. This is where my passion for IP started to grow.

How would you characterize the relationship between young people in Asia and intellectual property?

I do believe that young people in Asia nowadays are more respectful of IP and more cautious about infringing someone else’s IP rights. If infringement does occur it is usually because either they are ignorant about IP or it could be a smaller group of bad apples intentionally infringing. Several factors have led to that growing awareness. One of them is that there has been a great push for IP education, with educational campaigns, and awareness training. Not only from government organizations and local IP offices, but also the local educational institutions, and industry associations lobbying for more IP awareness and more respect for IP rights. Even in the private sector, companies that I have worked in, or know of, have their own IP awareness training and education for their employees. IP is treated similarly to cybersecurity or data privacy. Companies want to train their employees on how to protect the company’s IP and not get the company into trouble by infringing other people’s IP.

There is also the deterrent effect. I feel there has been a lot more collaboration between law enforcement agencies and media outlets to publicize the outcomes and the penalties given as a result of IP-related offenses. If people are caught selling counterfeit goods there is a lot more public awareness because it is published in newspapers or talked about in news programs.

The last factor is that businesses and industries have been making IP-centric and digital products and services more financially accessible. Two business models that have shown this would be microtransactions and freemium business models. For example, on music and video streaming platforms we used to have huge issues relating to P2P services like BitTorrent and Napster. Freemium companies now can offer IP products cheaper or even for free because they derive their revenue from other sources, like advertisements. So people have less incentive to resort to piracy.

Would you say young people’s perception of IP has changed over the last decade?

Yes, definitely, young people have become more aware of IP in the last 10 years. That being said, even after raising that baseline, the understanding of the general public of IP is still rather nascent. IP education has come to a great distance, but IP is still seen as something very esoteric. It is known by a very small group of people and that small group of people knows it very well. Young people in Asia, therefore, have a vague idea of IP, as we see it referenced in our everyday lives. One example would be in the video game industry or the movie industry, we use the term “IP” to refer to anything from characters to storylines that are so unique that they can spawn their own franchises. However, young people don’t quite understand the importance of IP. It is contradictory because IP is so niche and at the same time it is also very mainstream. If people realized that IP permeates our everyday life they might have this “Eureka” moment. IP is in the clothes that we wear, the books that we read, the shows that we watch, and even in the content we create and upload onto our very own social media pages.

In this era of online content creation on multiple platforms by young people, how is IP used?

Copyright is the most beneficial form of IP for content creators because in most jurisdictions registration is not required, and the right exists from the moment of the time of creation. We see content being created in many different ways, usually, it is tied to a young person’s desire to express him/herself, and usually created in the form of photos, sounds, text, video, and music. We refer to all of that as User Generated Content (UGC).

Another popular form of UGC is livestreaming, which happens in real-time. Therefore Copyrights are created instantaneously and the protection is also afforded exactly at the moment it is happening. Livestreaming has become a multi-million dollar industry, and many young content creators are jumping on the bandwagon.

Livestreaming is not only about video game content. One good example of this is the Dungeon and Dragons “Critical Role” livestreaming channel on Twitch. Their livestream has earned US$9 million in the last two years and their IP is now being spawned into an animated series, chronicling their characters’ adventures.

Would you say that young content creators are always aware that they are protected by copyright laws?

People don’t usually become aware until their IP has been infringed. Then the question is: is it too late?

I don’t think young creators are really aware of it and more needs to be done to educate them and impress upon them the importance of IP.

What would be the optimum use of IP for young content creators?

The use of Copyrights would be a good way for them to build a future for themselves as young content creators. It is possible for young content creators nowadays to have their entire careers and livelihoods centered around their IP. This is a new concept that I never thought possible. They create this one UGC and it goes viral and it makes them an overnight sensation. Of course, many people do this professionally and it is usually their hard work, dedication, and commitment that ultimately land them a big payday. The top streamers can earn several US$ millions a year, and what is amazing is that most of these people are in their early twenties.

Even if a content creator is not able to monetize their UGC directly, there are many examples too of how it has been a launching point for them to kick-start their careers. They get endorsements, sponsorships, and advertising opportunities. They might even become a famous TV or movie celebrity. Ten years ago, it was unimaginable.

Would you say that social media consumption is there to stay in your region?

Social media is here to stay, and the trend has increased since Covid-19. It has forced people to go online to stay connected. The pandemic has changed everyone’s consumption of social media. People used it to stay connected with family, friends, as a cure for boredom during lockdowns and self-isolation periods. Social media was never more relevant. One thing that cannot be understated is how heavily people now use social media to get the latest developments on the pandemic or other world events. They now go to their social media feeds to read the news rather than picking up a newspaper to read it.

How do you see the future of social media consumption in Asia?

We have to think about the evolution of social media platforms. We have single and dual-use apps and that is the traditional view of social media. Now we are moving to the concept of “super apps”. That is a trend that cannot be ignored and many social media platforms are headed in that direction already. Social media platforms and applications can become a gateway for users to access a wider variety of things they can do online. It could be buying goods and services, and having access to entertainment. Social media is going to be more and more integrated into our lives.

What are the chances that virtual reality overcomes our lives?

It is still very early days. For virtual reality to take off, a lot of surrounding technologies have to catch up and keep up with the idea and the concept of virtual reality. There has been research in two main areas: the hardware, like the googles you put on, or the controller you use to move your avatar. The latest one would be tactile touch technology. They have gloves that you can put on and fibers in the gloves are stimulating your touch receptors to give you the impression that you are physically grabbing or touching an object. If all this hardware can come together and bolster the enjoyment of using virtual reality, then it will really take off. On the software side, the success of virtual reality will depend on how realistic the software can be. There are a lot of moving parts and all of them have to work together to succeed.

How will IP fit into these super apps and virtual reality?

The use of IP in super apps will essentially remain the same as it is now. Super apps are just a conglomeration of different already existing apps. Virtual reality is a completely different ball game. However, the IP system as it exists in real life will apply to virtual reality: copyrights, trademarks, and designs. All of those can be covered under existing IP laws. Everything that we can do in real life, supposing that the technology keeps pace, we will be able to do in virtual reality. So we can imagine that if there is an infringement in virtual reality we could also have IP litigation in that virtual reality, who knows?

How can WIPO reach those young Asian content creators, and interact with them to raise their IP awareness?

IP training and IP awareness are key initiatives. The only difference, I would say, is that we have to update the training materials, for example, why not use UGC as a basis to give real-life case studies and examples to these young content creators in Asia. That is to say how IP exists in UGC and what can they do if their IP in the UGC is being infringed upon. Wouldn’t that be relevant and of interest to them? We have to make the content more understandable to the layperson. We have to impress upon young content creators how IP permeates our everyday lives and how we are immersed in it.

Another key thing that WIPO can do is to collaborate with those platforms used by young content creators. Most of the platforms already have their own educational and training centers so that content creators can educate themselves but if WIPO can collaborate and leverage this pre-existing IP awareness training then it could be even more impactful.

All opinions expressed by Mitchel are his own.