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The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has just issued Memorandum Circular No. 2019-024 entitled Amendments to the Rules and Regulations on Inter Partes Proceedings, which will take effect on February 15 2020. Its objective is to provide speedy, quality and effective legal remedies to resolve IP disputes. The major amendments are as follows:

Recently, the Korean Supreme Court rendered a new en banc decision finding that a final and conclusive decision granting a patent correction cannot constitute a ground for retrial.

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.

Eduardo Kleinberg and Santiago Zubikarai of Basham evaluate the new industrial property legislation under consideration in Mexico, assessing changes to the law on damages, fines, the registration of trademarks and patents

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.

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.