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On July 3 2009, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) published a series of proposed changes to the Singapore Patent System for public consultation. The most important among the proposed changes involves the plan to move away from the current self-assessment regime to an official assessment regime.

Smith & Nephew (S&N), a leading medical devices company, achieved a groundbreaking win in a recent patent action for infringement and invalidity before the UK Court of Appeal. The action moved at unprecedented pace with proceedings issued in the High Court in December 2008, and Judgment by the Court of Appeal in July 2009, a mere seven months.

For the past few months, the Thai government has been taking aggressive actions against counterfeiting and piracy. Partly as an attempt to reclassify Thailand from the USTR's Priority Watch List to the Watch List and partly in response to concerns expressed by trade mark owners and the film and music industries, government authorities have been formulating new policies and strategies on IP and implementing them in a cohesive fashion. This has included a wave of seizures during the first three months of this year, a new programme encouraging informants to lead authorities to major counterfeiters and public education campaigns.

Turkey plans to introduce new rules to enhance patent rights with its aim of becoming harmonised with the EU acquis communitaire. Turkey's Programme for Alignment with the Acquis (2007-2013) Chapter 7 makes a roadmap for harmonising patents with the acquis communitaire: under this roadmap, the patent bill pending for patents that are protected by Decree-Law is to be legislated from the perspective of membership of the EU.

A request for re-establishment of rights in Norway may be made when the applicant has failed to comply with a time limit set by the Patents Act and for which the applicant has suffered loss of rights. Section 72 of the Patents Act dealing with re-establishment of rights is inspired by Article 122 EPC.

Mexico is one of the few countries in the world that does not offer the possibility of opposing a trade mark application, since such proceedings are not contemplated in Mexican Industrial Property Law.

A Russian citizen applied for the combination of letters GB against a white background, the lower part of letter B being highlighted in white (see illustration).

On July 8 2009, the Court in The Hague decided on the question whether a patent owner still has the right to enforce his patent as a temporary measure, if the patent was revoked in first instance. This in view of the fact that the revocation could be overruled in the appeal proceedings.

On April 1 2009, the High Court of Kuala Lumpur, in delivering the judgment in the case of Illinois Tool Works, Inc v Pendaftar Cap Dagangan, Malaysia [2009] 1 LNS 507 (Illinois), provided proper guidelines for the Registrar in issuing acceptance or objections when examining a trade mark.

China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce has released a draft set of amendments to the country's Trade Mark Law.