Asia-Pacific

The concept of corporate criminal liability was introduced into Vietnamese law under the Penal Code of 2015, which took effect in 2018. Under the 2015 Penal Code, for the first time, corporate entities (companies) could be held criminally liable for a variety of offences, including certain intellectual property crimes under Articles 225 and 226.

In the US-China Phase One trade deal signed on January 15 2020, notable agreements on patents mostly relate to pharmaceutical sectors – Articles 1.10, 1.11 and 1.12. It is possible that these articles may also have implications for other sectors, which remains to be seen in the subsequent implementation. In addition, the provisions on judicial enforcement and procedures should benefit all patent owners. More technical issues such as indirect infringement or changes to the judicial review of invalidation decisions are not addressed. This update provides a brief overview of these key changes.

Japan has suffered from trade secret theft by Korean companies who enticed Japanese employees. It significantly damaged national interest. Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. (now Nippon Steel) sued Posco for trade secret infringement and sought around 100 billion JPY in damages. Posco agreed to pay 30 billion JPY and the parties settled. Toshiba sued SK Hynix for trade secret infringement and sought around 110 billion JPY in damages. SK Hynix agreed to pay around 33 billion JPY and the parties settled.

On December 25 2019, the Supreme Court promulgated amendments of Several Provisions on Civil Evidence Rules (amendments). The amendments, which will come into effect on May 1 2020, have attracted lots of attention from IP practitioners. The rules are expected to improve the accuracy and standardisation of evidence production procedures and balance the burden of proof between litigants. Below are some highlights of the amendments.

The TRIPS Agreement, to which the Philippines is a signatory, enables governments of member countries with no capacity to manufacture medicines to import/export cheaper pharmaceutical products via a compulsory licence. These are medicines for which they would otherwise have paid a higher price because of existing patents.

Recently, the Korean medical devices market has been growing notably. According to a 2019 Annual Report by the Korea Medical Devices Industry Association, the Korean domestic market has grown at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 8% during the last five years (2014 to 2018). The global medical devices market also exhibits a rising trend; Fortune Business Insight has forecasted a CAGR of 5.3% from 2018 to 2025. In view of a growing geriatric population, the prevalence of lifestyle-related diseases, and rising demand for new innovative devices and personalised healthcare services, the future medical devices market is expected to show steady growth.