A reflection from Hari Harta Intelek Negara 2026
By Silmyi M. Sadek, Chief Geek, Brand Geeks Inc.
Let me ask you something.
Mokhtar Dahari held the world record for international goals scored in men’s football until 2004. Number three in history, all time. As an 80s kid, he was our idol, no matter which state you’re from. Now, many Malaysians under 30 have no idea who he is.
Nicol David. Eight world championships. 112 consecutive months ranked number one in squash. In any sport, that level of dominance is mind-blowing. Today, her legacy lives inside an NGO. A good one. But not a brand. Not a commercial asset. Not something that earns for her, or for Malaysian sports, for the next 30 years. The logo can be better as well 🙏🏽
I was honoured to speak at Hari Harta Intelek Negara 2026, hosted by MyIPO, last week. The session was about the intersection of sports, IP, and branding and I want to be honest: I left feeling both inspired and a little frustrated. Because the opportunity in front of us is enormous. And we keep leaving it on the table.
The Brand Is What Makes the Mark Worth Protecting
Here is the thing about intellectual property that I think gets lost in the legal conversation. Registration protects the mark. But brand strategy is what makes the mark worth protecting in the first place.
You can trademark a name. You can own the copyright to an image. You can hold the rights to a likeness. But if there is no brand positioning behind it, no story, no conviction, no community, what exactly are you protecting?
Michael Jordan negotiated a royalty percentage from Nike in 1984. He was a rookie. He was a fresh graduate, essentially. But his family had the conviction to say: My son is going to be a legend, and we are going to negotiate like it. He retired from the Chicago Bulls in 1996. He is still earning over USD 300 million a year from Nike. Not because of a trademark filing. Because of a brand that was built, nurtured, and protected as an asset from the very beginning.
David Beckham. Netflix documentary. Inter Miami ownership rights he negotiated before he even retired. Rafael Nadal. The Rafa Nadal Academy. These are not accidents. They are the outcomes of people who understood that the brand is the long game and they played it deliberately.
We have the talent. We have the legends. We are just not building their legendary brand!
What We Are Sitting On
I’ll be honest, I had to scramble to update my slides two days before this talk, because on 26 April, Azizulhasni Awang won gold in Keirin. Again. While I was preparing a presentation about how we are not doing enough to build our sporting legends into brands, one of them went and reminded the world exactly why we should.
Four names. Mokhtar Dahari. Nicol David. Dato’ Lee Chong Wei. Muhammad Azizulhasni Awang (our Pocket Rocket Man, who is still racing, still winning, still collecting medals right now).
And then there is the Pearly/Thiinah partnership, a story so compelling, so uniquely Malaysian, that no other country in the world could produce it. One Indian, one Chinese, coached by a Malay, dominating a sport that traces its dynasty through Malaysia and a handful of other countries. That narrative is exclusively ours. That brand value belongs to us. And we are not owning it.
What is the commercial value of these names? Right now? Not what it should be. Not what it could be. Because we have not built the structures around them.
The Ecosystem Problem
I want to be clear: I am not blaming the athletes. They are focused on training, on competing, on winning. That is exactly what they should be doing. The responsibility sits with everyone around them: the institutions, the associations, the government bodies, the brands, the strategists, the IP professionals.
The question I kept coming back to in that room was: what does the ecosystem look like for an athlete who wants to build a brand that outlasts their career?
Right now, the answer is: it barely exists.
We need IP custodians working alongside performance coaches. We need brand strategy conversations happening while athletes are still competing not after they retire and the window is already narrowing. We need image rights structures in place before the first major win. We need to identify potential legends early and start building the asset from day one.
And we need people inside our institutions, KBS, ISN, MyIPO, our schools, asking not just how do we produce more champions, but how do we make sure those champions have something that earns for them, and for Malaysia, long after they stop competing.
The Gaps We Are Not Seeing
One of the frameworks we use at Brand Geeks Inc. is the Challenger Brand concept and it applies here as much as it does in business.
Malaysia cannot compete with China or Indonesia in badminton by out-resourcing them. We are 30 million people. They are a billion. So we find the gaps. We find where the big players are not looking. And we build there.
The same logic applies to Malaysian sports IP.
Halal sports nutrition. We have Tongkat Ali, Moringa, a library of Malaysian herbs with documented performance benefits. Most of them are backed by real research. None of them are branded for a global sports market. The Middle East alone is looking for exactly this. The halal sports supplement category is growing, and Malaysia could own a corner of it, if someone decides to be strategic about it.
Muslim sports apparel. Modest athletic wear for a global Muslim market. The demand is there. Some Malaysian innovators are already working on this. But the brands are not built. The IP is not protected. The commercial infrastructure is not in place.
Cultural IP. The Malaysian badminton dynasty is a story that belongs to us. The Pearly/Thinaah story. The Pocket Rocket story. These are assets. We need to produce content and not just consume it. We need to own the narrative before someone else packages it and sells it back to us.
What We Should Do. Now.
I said it in the room and I will say it here. Do not wait for the legend to retire before you start the conversation.
For athletes: register your name. Register your nickname. Do it now and not after the retirement press conference, not after the gold medal ceremony, not when the endorsements dry up. Review your image rights. Build your post-career brand while you are still competing, while the world is still watching. And when you sit down at the negotiating table, negotiate from strength, not from gratitude.
For event organisers: the content you are producing: the videos, the photos, the race footage, the match highlights, that is IP. Own it. Publish a licensing policy. Build content that the world pays for. We are very good at consuming content in this country. We need to be just as serious about producing it and protecting it.
For MyIPO: I put this question directly to the room: Is GI registration for Malaysian herbal sports ingredients on anyone’s radar? Tongkat Ali. Moringa. Herbs with documented, research-backed performance benefits. A friend of mine went to the Middle East for a trade mission and they were all looking for Tongkat Ali. The halal sports nutrition market is real, it is global, and it is waiting. If we can organise it, brand it, and protect it as a geographical indication, that is a category Malaysia could own.
And for everyone in that room and beyond: audit what you already have. Appoint an IP custodian. Activate your brand protection now and not later, not after the next championship, not when it is convenient. The window does not stay open forever.
The Real Question
Here is the question I ended with, and I want to leave it with you, too.
Datuk Azizulhasni Awang is still racing. He is still winning. The window is open. We confirmed with MyIPO and ISN later that he had already registered Pocket Rocket as a trademark. Brilliant!
I sincerely hope his team takes good care of his brand so that when he retires, I would be standing in front of another audience saying: We had another legend just like SuperMokh, and this time we also have a legendary brand, The Pocket Rocket. Not just for the benefit of the man himself and his family, but also for our next generation of athletes who sacrifice so much during their stellar careers.
We have seen the cautionary tale. We know how it ends.
Let us together write a different one.
Silmyi M. Sadek is the Chief Geek and Co-Founder of Brand Geeks Inc., a branding and marketing strategy firm on a mission to nurture legendary brands that change the world. BGI has been working with technology brands, social enterprises, and challenger businesses since 2011.
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