Bio

Dave Stewart is a specialist intellectual property lawyer with a forte in legal brand clearance and trade mark oppositions, and heads up our team of five specialist intellectual property lawyers. Dave has been consistently recognised as one of Australia’s leading trade mark lawyers in notable intellectual property rankings and legal services guides such as Managing IP’s IP Stars, WTR1000, Doyles, and AsiaLaw. Dave acts for a wide range of clients including automobile manufacturers, wine makers and agribusinesses, mining companies, financial and insurance sector participants, property developers, clothing, footwear and textile producers, artists and writers, telecommunication companies, and defence sector companies. Dave was admitted as a lawyer from 1995, as a registered trade mark attorney from 1999, and as a notary public from 2012. Dave has worked in Osaka, Japan and from 2000-2003 practiced in IP in Hong Kong. Dave has appeared as counsel in trials, interlocutory injunctions, and many trade mark opposition and ex parte hearings. Dave has a particular interest in automotive branding. Dave was awarded a Masters in IP Law in 2000 and appointed an Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University in 2013. He has lectured at Murdoch University, the Australian Graduate School of Management in Hong Kong, Edith Cowan University, and in 2004 and 2005 in Phnom Penh for The Asia Foundation on the IP implications of Cambodia joining the World Trade Organisation. In 2018, Dave attended the Oxford University Saïd Business School programme on negotiation. Dave attended the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Advanced Domain Name Workshop in Geneva in 2011 and has run many UDRP disputes. He is a regular attendee at the conferences of the International Trade Mark Association and the Pharmaceutical Trade Mark Group. Dave is a member of the Association Internationale des Juriste du Droit de la Vigne et du Vin, the Law Society of Western Australia’s Intellectual Property committee, and the Trans-Tasman committee of the Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand. Dave has written for or been covered by the Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post, the Australian Financial Review, The Guardian, and The West Australian newspapers. Dave appeared in the 2006 ABC documentary ''The Good, The Bad and the Ugg Boot'', to do with a trade mark dispute concerning the Ugg boots brand in which Dave acted for the successful parties.