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Interviews with respondents to Managing IP’s China in-house survey show why companies’ attitude to IP filing abroad is aggressive, but their enforcement tentative

When Chinese sweetener manufacturer JK Sucralose became the first Chinese company to intervene voluntarily to defend an ITC action, it made a name for itself.

The respondents to Managing IP's Chinese in-house survey come from a wide variety of industries, but maintain small IP teams.

Fashion designers were recently handed an important victory by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals when it ruled that a single colour in the specific context of the fashion industry could acquire secondary meaning and therefore serve as a source identifier for a particular fashion brand.

The issue of whether a mark is descriptive or merely suggestive of the goods sought to be protected has always been a difficult area in Thailand. Though not many precedents are available, it was recently addressed by the Supreme Court in Liebherr-International v Department of Intellectual Property.

Article 84 of the Patent Law provides that a patentee may request destruction or necessary disposal of infringing goods, and raw materials and implements for committing the infringing act, when requesting restraint of infringement.

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court recently held the company names Mediconsult AG and Medical Consult AG to be confusingly similar, and overturned, on appeal, the contrary finding of the first instance Cantonal court.

The Chamber of Patent Disputes recently examined a conflict involving a Russian food product and a French name. The conflict was over a trade mark application for the designation Версаль (a well-known Russian translation of the word Versaille) in the name of a Siberian dairy producer in the city of Irkutsk in respect of goods in class 30 ("dressings including mayonnaise"). The applicant for the trade mark is one of the leading producers of dairy products in Russia including mayonnaise under the name of Версаль (Versaille) the production of which started in 2003.

On September 8 2012, the Department of Justice (DoJ) published department circular 14 entitled Adopting Accreditation Guidelines for Alternative Dispute Resolution Provider Organizations and Training Standards for Alternative Dispute Resolution Practitioners. The DoJ has an attached agency called the Office for Alternative Dispute Resolution (OADR) which was established in December 2009 under department circular 98 when it issued the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the ADR Act 2004. The OADR has not been active since its creation, and it was only on August 17 2012 that DoJ Secretary Leila de Lima signed the accreditation guidelines in a forum organised for the event.

Passed by Congress on September 16 2011, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) will usher in the biggest amendments to the US patent system in the past 60 years. One change for applicants filing under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is scheduled to take effect on September 16 2012.