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On May 29 2014, the DNS.PT Association, which is responsible for the management, registration and maintenance of domains under the top-level domain (TLD) .pt, published changes to the rules for the registration of domain names in the .pt domain. The changes came into force on June 16 2014.

In April, the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in Sprecht v Google Inc which provided an interesting analysis of various acts that do not constitute use of a trade mark.

The definiteness requirement of Section 112(b) of the Patent Act mandates that claims "particularly point[] out and distinctly claim[] the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention". The disagreement in Nautilus v Biosig centered on how much imprecision this definiteness requirement tolerates. In the Federal Circuit's view, a claim was indefinite only if it is "insolubly ambiguous" or not "amenable to construction". A unanimous Supreme Court criticised the standard as "more amorphous than the statutory definiteness requirement allows", citing lower courts' confusion, but also acknowledged that the Federal Circuit's "fuller explications of the term 'insolubly ambiguous' may come closer to tracking the statutory prescription" for definiteness.

On 8 April 2014, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) announced an IP financing scheme set to catalyse innovation among local companies. The IP financing scheme is part of the government's initiatives to develop Singapore as a hub for IP transactions and management, taking advantage of IPOS's newly established Centre of Excellence for IP valuation.

On April 22, the People's Court of the city of Da Nang issued a decision ordering the revocation of the lafarge.com.vn domain name registered by a Vietnamese individual, giving Lafarge SA of France a 10-day sunrise period to register the domain name itself. This brought to a conclusion a five-year battle over cybersquatting and set a precedent for domain name cases in Vietnam.

Often, a single pharmaceutical may be effective in the treatment of multiple aliments. The issue therefore arises where some of those treatments are separately patented as second medical uses of the original pharmaceutical.

On May 22 2014, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced the suspension of the investigation against InterDigital Communications (IDC), a US wireless technology developer, as the company had submitted detailed measures to address the regulator's concerns. What is interesting is the differences in the IDC measures between the press release of NDRC and that of IDC. NDRC states that:

As a member of World Trade Organization, Indonesia has adopted the TRIPs Agreement in its IP laws, including regarding injunctions. Nonetheless, due to the lack further explanation especially on how to proceed with the injunction, these provisions could not be applied in practice.

There are clear indications that Chinese government authorities are taking more concerted actions to address online infringements of IP rights, as illustrated by new campaigns targeting counterfeiting and patent violations, as well as new regulatory measures to restrict online trading in health-related items. Of greatest potential interest is the Action Plan just announced by the National Leading Group.

The US Supreme Court has handed down a decision that appears to align with the approach we are taking in New Zealand. In Alice Corporation Pty Ltd v CLS Bank International et al the Court held that use of a generic computer does not transform an abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention. This is an important decision for all patent applicants as it gives guidance on what is no longer patentable in the field of computer-implemented inventions.