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The Arab pharmaceutical market is reportedly valued at more than $12 billion and is growing at more than 10% a year, with around 450 manufacturers. With the exception of Egypt, all Arab countries are high importers of branded drugs, while local manufacturing capabilities are limited to generic and licensed drugs with very little research and development. Thus, it has become more important for trade mark owners to address the challenges of pharmaceutical trade mark protection, and to become more familiar with the requirements that are specific to this region.

A draft of Mexican Official Standard NOM-257-SSA1-2013 that will affect the way the procedures for obtaining marketing authorisations for medicaments are performed, as well as renewal and modifications of those authorisations, is under review.

With the coming into force of the amendments to the Industrial Designs Act on July 1 2013, a design must be new not only in Malaysia but in the world to be validly registered. Applications filed before July 1 but registered after July 1 will be subject to this international novelty requirement and it usually takes about nine months for an application to be registered. Another key amendment is the extension of the duration of design protection from 15 years to 25 years for all existing and new registrations in line with UK and EU design protection.

The expiry of blockbuster drug patents intensifies disputes between brand-name pharmaceutical companies and generic drug manufacturers. This case is one such dispute. In some cases, a brand-name pharmaceutical company restrains a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer from selling generic drugs based on combination patents after the single brand-name drug patent has expired.

On July 27, while upholding the validity of one patent (the '017 patent) granted to Glaxo Group Limited, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) revoked another (the '171 patent), for lack of inventive step and as being hit by Section 3(d). Both the patents relate to lapatinib and its compounds. Interestingly, both decisions rest on the adequacy of the pleadings and evidence on record – while in the first case the IPAB concluded that the petitioner who challenged the patent failed to satisfy his burden of proof, in the second case, it was the patentee who failed to satisfy his burden of proof.

Fulfilling rising client expectations not only requires an attorney's patent prosecution acumen, but also increasingly an understanding of the client's business model. More and more CEOs understand that IP can be an effective revenue generator and a vital part of a company's value. Patent attorneys are therefore well advised to keep an eye on the business side when working with industrial clients.

Is it a good or a bad thing to be described as a "combatant witness"?

The Paris Court of Appeal recently had to rule on the French trade mark Moulin Rouge, registered for goods in class 16 (Moulin Rouge SA (Belgium) and Bal du Moulin Sv s Les Editions du Tertre SA – May 17 2013). It is true that the famous French cabaret is more internationally known for its dancing girls than for its pencil cases.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is a modern, fast and low-cost alternative to traditional litigation that has yet to take hold in the Croatian legal system.

When filing a trade mark application, applicants should provide true information about their business and nationality, as well as the nature of the goods/services etc. If they do not, the application will be rejected under Article 10.1.8 of the PRC Trade Mark Law and the PRC Supreme Court's [2010] No 12 Opinion, as these four cases show.