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Under Section 39 of the Singapore Patents Act, where a patent has ceased to have effect because of a failure to pay any renewal fee an application for the restoration of the patent may be made. Under Rule 53(1), this application must be made within 30 months from the date on which the patent ceased to have effect, with an accompanying statutory declaration or affidavit setting out the grounds for the application and evidence in its support.

Few problems on the Russian IP landscape stir public opinion more than parallel imports, which have been the talk of the day for almost two years, playing the same tune for months. First, it was the administrative prosecution that stumbled in every other case until the Supreme Arbitration Court said that administrative prosecution of parallel imports was not possible. For the sake of order it should be acknowledged that the Code on Administrative Offences has clumsy wording in the section dedicated to trade mark infringement. This allowed parallel importers to evade responsibility – not always but sometimes. To offset the chagrin of the trade mark owners, the Supreme Arbitration Court also said that the civil law had enough tools to protect trade mark rights against infringement.

On October 26, 2009 the Intellectual Property Office (IPPhil) presented proposed special rules on IP litigation to the Chief Justice Reynato Puno of the Philippine Supreme Court. The rules were crafted in coordination with the various stakeholders and led by IPPhil. Some of the important points of these rules, which are aimed to speed up court processes and reduce litigation costs, are:

As a non-EU member state, Norway is not bound by the provisions of Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 29 2004 on the enforcement of IP rights.

When two parties own and use arguably similar marks, they are often able to address their respective concerns regarding the other's use and resolve any differences between them amicably by entering into what is commonly referred to as a Co-Existence Agreement. A Co-Existence Agreement typically operates to either provide consent from a senior user of a mark to a junior user's use of a similar mark and/or to resolve a dispute regarding competing uses of a mark when an adversarial proceeding is pending.

It is very difficult to cancel registered trade marks in Vietnam (even cases of obvious bad faith may take up to two years to resolve, which is both time-consuming and costly to rights owners). This means rights holders and their counsel need to quickly oppose trade mark applications prior to registration. Accordingly, it is important to understand the relevant timelines that affect the filing of oppositions in Vietnam.

IP owners and advisers discuss the challenges they face in Malaysia with Kamel Mohamad, head of the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia

Pursuant to Article 67.1.3 of the Patent Act, an interested party may begin invalidation proceedings against an invention patent if the patent owner is not entitled to the invention.

In 2009, a Swiss Federal Act establishing a specialised Federal Patent Court was passed. The new court will become the only first instance Swiss court for patent infringement and nullity proceedings (which to date have been handled by 26 cantonal courts of first instance), with Swiss national patents and the Swiss parts of European patents falling within the Court's jurisdiction. The Swiss Federal Court will retain its present function as second instance in patent matters. The new Patent Court will be constituted in 2010 and is expected to take up work early in 2011.

Since the expiry of its patents in July 1978, the Danish toy manufacturer Lego has made numerous attempts to stop competitors from entering the market for the well-known interlocking toy bricks. In November 2008 the European Court of First Instance decided that the 3D shape of the brick cannot be protected by a trade mark. Lego is appealing this decision.