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China forms the centrepiece of this issue's cover story.

In In re Hikari Sales USA, Inc., the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) issued a second precedential decision involving genericness, this year, just two days after issuing its first one. In doing so, the TTAB sent a strong message to brand owners hoping to obtain exclusive rights in highly descriptive or otherwise common terms.

A few days ago, a photograph of a bottle of Dutch tequila began circulating on the web. The creators of this product, which has not yet hit the market and probably never will, claim to have improved the taste of original tequila, based on Dutch gin, and now feel ready to enter the European market.

Republic Act No. 10963 or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), revising the outdated National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 took effect on January 1 2018. Its objective is to "correct a number of deficiencies in the tax system by making it simpler, fairer and more efficient". A new section on fuel marking was introduced in the TRAIN to curb smuggling and misdeclaration of petroleum products which has resulted in revenue losses from excise and value added taxes estimated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Philippine pesos at 37.5 billion annually.

The opponent in the case discussed in this article has owned the word mark SEVEN since 2009 and the word and design mark 7seven in a fancy script since 2014. He opposed the registration of the word mark ROOM SEVEN. All these marks were registered for identical goods in international Class 18 (bags). Among other reasons, the defendant stated that the word mark SEVEN was not used during the last five years and that he has used the mark ROOM SEVEN since 1995 in several European countries including Austria without problems. This conflict has already led to decisions in several countries. For example, the Cour d'appel de Paris did not see any danger of confusion in its decision of September 26 2017 since ROOM SEVEN will be seen by consumers as a combination in which the word SEVEN has no particular importance.

Performing trademark clearance searches should always be the first step taken prior to filing a trademark application, as they are an effective way of preventing legal risks before launching a brand.

Discovery of evidence and actions for determination of evidence are separately regulated under the Civil Procedural Law. Discovery of evidence is a preliminary step taken before any action on merits and it only serves to discover and record the evidence that may be relevant to an ongoing or future action on merits.

An application for a trademark no 2016739384 was filed by Chicago, a Russian beauty parlour from S-Petersburg.

Law 4605/19, enacted last week, introduced important amendments to Greek patent law and more specifically to the provisions relating to licences.

The Sudanese Trademark Office has announced an important jurisdictional change – the Appeal Committee of the Trademark Office has been dissolved and, in future, appeals against decisions of the registrar will go to the courts. A registrar's decision might, for example, be a refusal based on issues surrounding non-distinctiveness, or a refusal based on prior rights (in formal opposition proceedings).