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of the view that if such knowledge is accompanied by a wrongful intention to defeat a lawful
interest that would amount to fraud.
They then submitted that in the instant case the plaintiff knew that the 3rd defendant was the
registered owner of the trademark PANASUPER in China as stated in Exhibit D10 being a
statutory declaration that was submitted to the Registry of Trademark while applying for
registration of this trademark. More so, the Plaintiff had knowledge of the 3rd defendants’
registration in WIPO and AIPO.
It was contended that the plaintiff was issued with a power of attorney to register the 3 rd
defendant’s trademark in Uganda in the 3rd defendant’s name. The definition of a power of
attorney as per Black’s Law Dictionary was quoted as; “an instrument in writing whereby one
person, as principal, appoints another as his agent and confers authority to perform certain
specified acts or kinds of act on behalf of a principal…. An instrument authorizing another to act
as one‟s agent or attorney…. Such power may be general (full) or special (limited).”
It was argued that from the above definition, the only relationship that a power of attorney can
create is that of a principal–agent relationship. Thus by entering into a power of attorney with
the plaintiff automatically became an agent of the 3rd defendant. Therefore, the 3rd defendant
intended to have the trademark registered in its names and not in the names of the plaintiff.
It’s the plaintiff’s contention that if the 3rd defendant intended to have the plaintiff own the
trademark it would have signed a sale agreement, an assignment or transmission of their
intellectual property rights in the PANASUPER trademark in Uganda to the plaintiff and this is
not the case as the trademark was issued on the basis of the said power of attorney.
Counsels relied on the case of Rehema Namuli vs James Mulwana and 3 ors H.C.C.S No. 613
of 2004 where fraud was defined to include: “anything calculated to deceive whether by a single
act or combination or suppression of truth or suggestion of what is false, whether it is by direct
falsehood or innuendo by speech or silence, word of mouth or look or gesture.”
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