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The relaxation of foreign investment restrictions and a growing, aspiring middle class have encouraged new players to enter Myanmar’s franchising industry in recent years. Previously, franchises in Myanmar predominantly operated in the food and beverage industry; however, in the last few years, the country has witnessed a growth spurt of franchise operations in the services and education sectors. While no official statistics are available on overseas franchises in the country, brands currently present in Myanmar include, among others, Best Western, Europcar, Gloria Jean’s Coffees, Gymboree, KFC, Krispy Kreme, Pingu’s English, and Swensen’s.

Indonesia’s problem of trade mark piracy has reared its head again. This time, DC Comics lost a recovation case against Marxing Fam Makmur‘s SUPERMAN trade mark. The Supreme Court then upheld the decision.

Read full story by Nick Redfearn of Rouse Magazine: https://www.rouse.com/magazine/news/indonesias-trademark-law-proves-to-be-kryptonite-to-superman/?tag=ip%20komodo

In 2017 the discovery of a counterfeit vaccines network across Indonesia caused a public outcry that meant politicians, bureaucrats and health organisations had to take action.

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.

More: https://www.rouse.com/magazine/news/rouse-lands-first-ever-foreign-geographical-indications-in-cambodia-for-champagne/?tag=geographical%20indications

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.

More: https://www.rouse.com/magazine/news/avengers-endgame-suspense-ended-early-in-philippines/?tag=ip%20komodo

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.

More: https://www.tilleke.com/resources/vietnam-investment-review-cptpp-obligations-alter-vietnam%E2%80%99s-ip-landscape

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.