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Two recent rulings have shed light on the interpretation of claims in Mexican patent litigation. Mariana Gonzalez Vargas of Becerril Coca & Becerril explains they provide an important reference for unity of invention and the doctrine of equivalents

China, being a rapidly developing market with a highly flourishing economy, is a main source of trade mark infringement, troubling trade mark owners. Today, we make a brief introduction to one of the most efficient measures for cracking down on trade mark infringement – the AIC enforcement action.

Recent patent infringement cases in Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector have revealed the ambiguity of competent authorities' roles in determining whether a patent has been infringed. Such vagueness has caused unexpected delays in legal proceedings.

In early October, the top policy making body in China issued a special opinion proposing to explore the patent linkage system, to extend patent terms for pharmaceuticals and to improve regulatory data protection, all of which are intended to encourage innovation in pharmaceutical and medical device fields. While the exact details of such new policy initiatives are not yet known, it has excited the industry.

EU member states all have to amend their trade mark laws in adoption to the new EU Trade Mark Directive until beginning of 2019.

On October 30 2017, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) published its revised Examination Guidelines, following legislative changes made to the Singapore Patents Act. The key amendments to the Guidelines include the expansion of the grace period provision, the ability to switch between substantive and supplementary examination, a clarification of the term "discoveries" in regard to patent eligibility and the rejection of post-grant amendment claims which are "obviously invalid".

A monthly column devoted to IP curiosities and controversies, named in honour of John of Utynam

Overall success rates of motions to stay district court litigation pending inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board dropped noticeably in the past fiscal year. Christopher Hanewicz and Truscenialyn Brooks of Perkins Coie analyse recent stay statistics, including comparing by district and judge

The USPTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) issued a precedential decision in In re Tapco International Corporation in which it clarified the test for determining whether a mark is deceptive. The USPTO Examiner issued a refusal to register trade mark applications filed by Tapco for the marks KLEER ADHESIVES (covering plastic building products) and KLEER MOULDINGS and KLEER TRIMBOARD (each of which covered building materials made of wood) on the basis that such marks were deceptive and Tapco appealed such refusal to the TTAB.

User testing for new patent system can be expected in early 2018. One implementation challenge will be that there are not enough technical people to do patent examinations in Hong Kong