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A meeting of the world’s five biggest patent offices in China last month saw little progress on work sharing. Peter Ollier outlines the barriers to greater cooperation and explains why the issue is so important to IP owners

PH Kurian, the controller general of patents, designs and trade marks in India, tells Peter Ollier about the challenges that India’s trade mark office faces

USPTO Commissioner for Trademarks Lynne Beresford spoke with Eileen McDermott about the Office’s plans for improvement

The Taiwan Trade Mark Act stipulates that any mark identical with or similar to a mark registered or filed earlier by another shall be unregistrable. In assessing whether a junior mark is similar to a senior mark, the two marks are generally viewed in their entireties. However, in a recent opposition case, questions have arisen as to whether a junior mark incorporating several discrete components respectively similar to a series of senior marks will be deemed a similar mark and whether the form under which a senior mark is used in commerce will be considered in the assessment of likelihood of confusion.

German company Daimler AG filed a cancellation action against Russian trade mark registration 272644 of March 6 2003 due to non-use registered in the name of an unknown Russian company. This was a seemingly routine case but not for the subject matter of the trade mark. It is a verbal mark Maibach. A very similar trade mark (Maybach) is much more familiar than the name of the Russian company which registered the slightly different mark.

It is established case law that the content of the disclosure of a prior art document is constituted not only of the words actually used but also what the publication reveals to the skilled reader as a matter of technical reality. In a recent case (Ratiopharm v Eli Lilly) the court of the Hague ruled that when a prior art document contains prima facie an error, the document does not need to be ignored but may still be used if the correction of the error is directly and unambiguously evident.

Editha R Hechanova of Hechanova Bugay & Vilchez analyses recent trade mark oppositions and appeals in the Philippines

Indran Shanmuganathan and Chew Chui Yiang of Shearn Delamore set out the rules protecting well-known trade marks in Malaysia

Binny Kalra and Saif Khan of Anand and Anand look at the impact of counterfeiting from an Indian perspective

Jerry Yulin Zhang of Haiwen & Partners explains how China’s tax system is relevant to the fight against counterfeiting