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In February 2017, new guidelines were published by the Federal Commission for the Protection Against Sanitary Risks (COFEPRIS) that should be followed by medicaments or drugs considered as new molecules before the new molecules committee for evaluation, including the non-person modalities.

According to Article 59 of the Chinese Patent Law the specification and drawings related to a patent right may be used in claim construction. However, it has long been a question as to whether claims are to be construed based on claim language alone without referring to the specification and drawings, or whether the content of the specification and drawings shall be read to limit or otherwise be used to illustrate the scope of claims. In a recently decided case (number 2016-XingZai-70), the Supreme Court of China held that the content of the specification and drawings was not allowed to be read into the claims, and that claims were to be construed in a narrow sense.

Zoledronic acid hydrate (zoledronate) is a medicinal compound created by Novartis and is also an active substance of the bone resorption inhibitor named Zometa for i v infusion. Novartis filed a Japanese patent application including the claimed invention as follows: "An agent for treatment containing 2-(imidazol-1-yl)-1-hydroxyethane-1,1-diphosphonic acid (Zoledronate) or pharmaceutically acceptable salts, wherein 4 mg of Zoledronate is to be administered intravenously over a period of 15 minutes to a patient in need of bisphosphonate treatment."

Bad faith trade mark filings are not uncommon in Vietnam. In fact, bad faith is often included under the label of "dishonesty basis" as a ground for opposition or cancellation of a trade mark application/registration. Generally speaking, bad faith is deemed to occur when an applicant intentionally registers a trade mark to benefit from the goodwill and reputation associated with the trade mark of another owner.

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) announced on April 26 2017 the launch of a new billion-dollar fund aimed at helping promising companies to grow and expand into global markets.

Utynam was pleased to attend Managing IP's IP in Asia forums in Washington DC and Palo Alto last month, which focused on the latest IP developments in China, Japan and Korea.

One of the EPO's Technical Boards of Appeal has recently reminded the community of the front-loaded nature of inter partes opposition proceedings. In proceedings leading to decision T 2193/14 dated 14 March 2017 and made publicly available on May 11 2017, the opponent was deprived of the possibility of having certain prior art citations considered which purportedly were relevant for the assessment of non-obviousness. The Board of Appeal denied the admissibility into the proceedings of the aforementioned citations, which were submitted by the opponent on appeal only, and eventually confirmed the patentability of the claimed subject-matter without having considered the citations in question on their substantive merits.

This case is a dispute between two Turkish traders in foodstuffs in Austria. It is a case of trade mark opposition proceedings so that only the registered goods count and not the market fact that these food products are all "halal" (that is, according to Islamic food rules) since this is not reflected in the list of goods of the registrations. The latter fact might have had an influence on the consumer circles concerned.

On May 16 2017, Bill C-30, the bill to implement the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), received Royal Assent. The legislation contains a number of provisions amending the Canadian Trade-marks Act pertaining to geographical indications (GIs). In particular, the provisions expand GI protection in Canada beyond wine and spirits to agricultural products and food.

The recent case of IPC Global Pty Ltd v Pavetest Pty Ltd (No 3) [2017] FCA 82, provides a textbook example of how not to create a competitive start-up.