Firm

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.

Attempting to establish a trademark infringement test, on December 18 2019, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released draft Criteria for Determining Trademark Infringement (Consultation Draft), inviting public comments.

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.

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.