Md. Raus bin Sharif

On the judicial record

A record of apex-level reasoning across trade-mark and patent law under the Patents Act 1983, the Federal Court's exclusive jurisdiction under the Federal Constitution, derivative actions, and the adequacy of judicial reasons.

Md. Raus bin Sharif sits in the Federal Court, the apex court of Malaysia, and this collection gathers final appellate decisions across commercial, constitutional and public law. Intellectual property is a strong strand: an opposition to the registration of a trade mark and the appeal from the Registrar, a patent dispute under sections 12(1) and 14(1) of the Patents Act 1983 turning on validity, novelty, inventive step and infringement, and a trade-description order and the appeal to set it aside. Constitutional law is engaged in an appeal on the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Court under Articles 4(4) and 128(1)(a) of the Federal Constitution and the constitutionality of a statutory incorporation. Company law features through a derivative action in a deadlocked company with an equal split of shareholding, and land and banking through registered charges and related security. Civil procedure is addressed through the treatment of a non-speaking judgment and whether an appeal should be allowed simply because the court below gave no or inadequate grounds. The legal profession appears through disciplinary proceedings, including a matter concerning a law firm that acted for indigenous beneficiaries. Criminal appeals engage trafficking in dangerous drugs and an appeal against conviction and sentence. Because the Federal Court sits in panels and its rulings bind the courts below, these decisions settle the correct construction of a statute or a common-law principle rather than merely resolving the dispute at hand. Private individuals are referred to by role; corporate, governmental and statutory parties are named. A recurring concern is the proper functioning of the appellate process itself — the adequacy of reasons, the scope of the apex court's jurisdiction, the standards of intellectual-property protection — as much as the merits of any single dispute. The collection is a valuable record of apex-level reasoning across intellectual property, company law and civil procedure, and of the weight the apex court places on a reasoned judgment from the courts below.