Nicholas Lauw
Partner
Nicholas is an information technology, intellectual property and digital assets law specialist with over 15 years of experience in both high-value contentious and non-contentious matters.
He has established a practice at the cutting-edge of technology from working in both prominent international firms and some of Singapore's largest and most established law firms before joining RPC. Typically, he assists clients in managing and enforcing trademark, copyright and patent rights, and drafting and advising on agreements typical in the IT space such as master services agreements, software license agreements and software-as-a-service (SaaS) agreements. As part of this he has acted for clients in some of the largest intellectual property rights and information technology disputes, both before the Singapore Courts and arbitration. He also regularly advises clients in relation to personal data protection issues and has represented clients in online harassment cases and internet domain name disputes. Most recently he has advised various companies and individuals in the Web3 space in relation to NFTs, decentralised online platforms, decentralized autonomous organisations and the tokenisation of digital assets. As a thought leader on the subject, he has spoken about legal issues relating to NFTs at events such as Metajam Asia and NFT.NYC.
He has been named as one of Singapore's 70 most influential lawyers aged 40 and under by the Singapore Business Review 2016. Over the years he has served on the Intellectual Property committee of the Singapore law Society, the executive committee of the ASEAN Law Association, and the young practitioner’s subcommittee of the International Trademark Association.
Nicholas is qualified as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. He is based in Singapore and practises out of Premier Law LLC.
Directory quotes
- "Nicholas Lauw is very responsive and is able to provide pragmatic and commercial advice for our business."– The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2022
- 'Nicholas Lauw has more than often achieved the outcome that our company was looking for. I highly recommend him to anyone who needs sound legal advice for patent litigation cases.’ – The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2022
Relevant work
Non contentious:
- Acted for a multinational corporation in developing the enterprise agreement, website terms of use and data protection policy, and advising on the use of utility tokens for a decentralised data marketplace.
- Acted for a multinational corporation in reviewing a software vendor’s software as a service (SaaS) terms and conditions.
- Acted for a Japanese LNG trading company in reviewing master services, resourcing and license agreements for various software solutions.
- Acted for an airport operator in reviewing and advising on software licensing agreements and technology collaboration agreements, and the assignment of intellectual property pursuant to a purchase of assets from another entity.
- Acted for a Hong Kong insurance company in drafting a set of standardised IT implementation terms and conditions.
- Advised a multinational software company on the law relating to confidential information.
- Acted for an online travel portal in reviewing software license and development agreement.
- Acted for an NFT founder in reviewing a trademark cross license agreement.
- Carried out intellectual property due diligence for various clients involved in acquisitions.
- Drafted intellectual property securitisation agreements for various clients.
Contentious
- Acted for the Sunseap Group in defending claims of patent infringement by Sun Electric Pte Ltd relating to the use of solar panels and the issuance of renewable energy credits.
- Acted for a Chinese video game group in defending an interim injunction application and claims by a competitor of copyright infringement and passing off in relation to a team-based first person perspective game.
- Acted for a Japanese packaging company in refuting claims of intellectual property rights infringement in relation to a packaging for a Covid 19 test kit.
- Acted for an Indian software solutions company in advising on termination of a subcontractor for failure to deliver a working software solution.
- Acted for a multinational software solutions company in providing advice on confidential information, and acting against a distributor of its products who was acting in breach of its software license and distribution agreement.
- Acted for a multinational software distribution company in advising on breaches of confidence by an employee.Acted for a Swiss core banking software company in defending international arbitration proceedings under the ICC rules brought by a Malaysian bank for alleged breaches of software master services and license agreements.
- Acted for a Chinese road resurfacing company in defending international arbitration proceedings brought by a Canadian company under the SIAC rules in relation to a joint venture agreement.