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IP enforcement in Vietnam saw continued development in the past year. As we have reported previously, 2014 saw several breakthrough cases in patent infringement, domain name dispute resolution and other areas. In 2015, the law continued to evolve as more and more complex questions arose.

The concept of establishing trade mark use plays a central role in brand protection. In addition to forming one of the requirements in trade mark infringement actions, establishing trade mark use mitigates the risk of expungement proceedings due to non-use.

The TIPO's accelerated examination programme (AEP) has been in operation for over six years since the launch of its pilot version in 2009. According to a statistics report of the TIPO, by the end of November 2015, the conditions for requesting AEP and the average corresponding examination time are as follows:

A US company MD Science Lab filed a trade mark application number 2012718142 for Swiss Navy in respect of goods in class 5 (pharmaceuticals). The patent office refused the registration because the claimed designation includes the word element Swiss. In the opinion of the patent office the word "swiss" would be confusing with regard to the location of the applicant and place of production of goods because the applicant is a US resident. For the sake of justice it should be noted that not so many Russians would understand that this Latin word combination means.

2015 was an eventful year for the IP regime in Singapore. Many IP milestone events occurred in 2015, especially in the patents sector. The accessibility, interoperability and quality of the IP landscape in Singapore can be seen in this summary of important 2015 events.

Myanmar's general election, which took place on November 8, was the first nationwide vote since the military junta's dissolution in 2011. It was also the first poll contested by opposition party the National League for Democracy (NLD) in 25 years. Rapid economic reforms since 2011 have resulted in enormous growth opportunities. With the NLD winning a sweeping majority in both houses of parliament, the country now enters a transitional phase with the quasi-civilian government gradually transferring power to the NLD.

2015 was the year when Scandinavia took two major steps towards full harmonisation of validation formalities in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway regarding translation requirements and payment of fixed fees rather than fees depending on the number of pages of a validated patent.

On January 1 2016, the IP enforcement system in Korea changed significantly. By amending the Civil Procedure Act and the Court Organisation Act, Korea centralised the jurisdiction of both the first instance and the appellate courts of infringement actions.

Half of the 38 economies benchmarked in the US Chamber of Commerce’s annual IP index have strengthened their intellectual property systems in the US’s view

Details of Warner/Chappell’s Happy Birthday settlement, a Burberry trade mark suit, banks’ increased patent applications, a Fox and Dish Network settlement, two treaties being sent to the US Senate for ratification, and writers supporting Authors Guild’s appeal to the Supreme Court were in the IP news this week