Manage your Intellectual Property in South-East Asia
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Myanmar has finally enacted its long-awaited Trademark Law and Industrial Design Law on January 30, 2019, and its Patent Law was also signed into law on March 11, 2019. The Copyright Bill is expected to be enacted into law soon.
More: https://www.tilleke.com/resources/enactment-new-ip-laws-myanmar
The Indonesian government has issued Government Regulation No. 28 of 2019 specifying increases to the official fees for intellectual property filings, effective May 3, 2019. The increases in official fees mostly concern patent prosecution. While the fee for filing a patent application remains unchanged, fees have increased for other patent prosecution tasks, such as for filing a request for substantive examination, filing a request for change of data in a patent application, filing a recordal of patent assignment, patent annuities, and others.
More: https://www.tilleke.com/resources/new-fees-ip-filings-indonesia
Rouse has broken new ground by registering the first ever foreign geographical indication (GI), Champagne, in Cambodia on April 29.
“Champagne” will now be protected as a GI in one of the ASEAN region’s fastest growing economies, where a rapidly expanding middle class is driving increasing demand for premium foreign food and wines.
So the sudden airing on local TV of the Avengers: Endgame movie in southern Philippines came as a shock. It seems that a company called Orient Cable, a regional cable TV company in Dipolog, Zamboanga del Norte, the southern Philippines, showed one of the low end camcorded pirated copies of the film. Local movie theatres are up in arms, with one called Teatro de Dapitan threatening to sue Orient.
Due to significant changes to the intellectual property (IP) landscape, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) indeed poses major challenges to Vietnam in implementing its obligations. Most of the obligations aim to enhance protection for IP proprietors. This will have a particular impact on the life science sectors, benefitting foreign pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies but reducing opportunities, at least in the short-term, for Vietnamese companies.
Last month, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) Patent Registrar invoked its discretionary powers to deny a patentee’s request to enter post grant amendments as a defense in a revocation hearing based on findings of undue delay in presenting the post grant amendments and unfair advantage in pursuing monetization efforts in Singapore centered on the broader unamended Singapore claims when narrowing amendments had been required to obtain or retain grant of corresponding patents in other countries.
Ministerial Regulation No. 39 of 2018 on Procedures for Compulsory Patent Licensing took effect on 28 December 2018. This Regulation appears intended to provide a clear structure to compulsory licensing in accordance with TRIPS/the Doha Declaration. However it goes beyond that for reasons unknown so has caused an uproar in the pharma world.
The Thai Trademark Appeal Board (TTAB), a character encountered when a trademark applicant wishes to appeal any decision of the Thai Trademark Registrar. The TTAB is established by the Trademark Act B.E. 2534, comprising 11 – 15 members chosen by the Cabinet from the Council of State, the judiciary and experts in international trade and intellectual property. On 25 March 2019, a new edition of the Regulations will come into force, with repercussions expected to be felt by most trademark applicants in Thailand.
As part of Singapore’s obligations under the European Union-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, as of 1 April 2019, the Registry of Geographical Indications will come into operation. The Registry allows an entitled party to file for registration of a GI, which previously would be automatically protected if the GI is already protected in its country of origin that is a party to the Paris Convention or a member of the World Trade Organization. Indications for wines, spirits, beers, certain agricultural products and foodstuffs can qualify for a place in the GI Registry.
American clothing brand, Guess, Inc (“Guess”) opposed the registration of “Hater” filed by Jen Chi for goods in Class 25 (clothing). One of the main grounds of opposition was that the applicant’s mark was similar to their earlier marks, and relied on the following earlier marks, amongst others.