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The National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam (NOIP) has issued an official Notice in favour of General Electric, who lodged an opposition against Vietnamese trade mark application GE mancy & Device for real estate services in Class 36 under the name of Phong Thuy One-Member Co. In the Notice, the examiner concluded that the representation of GE mancy & Device would certainly result in association between the mark and General Electric in the minds of the public. The application was refused in accordance with Article 74 of the Vietnamese Law on Intellectual Property.

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) has proposed an amendment to the law governing copyright collective management organisations (CMOs). The draft amendment is expected to be implemented in 2010.

New examination standards for medicinal inventions have recently been implemented. Naoki Koizumi and Taku Yamada of TMI Associates explain how they will affect inventions relating to new dosages or administration

Japan's IP High Court is advocating new rules on when patent term extensions for pharmaceuticals should be granted. Shintaro Yamada of Shiga International Patent Office explains what they mean in practice

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Just before the 2010 New Year some of the big Russian banks received a notification from their colleague, the Eastern Express bank, to the effect that the words Christmas, New Year, Vacation can be used only after signing a licence agreement. Eastern Express registered the words as trade marks and decided to improve its business by collecting royalties from the other banks using those words. The marks were registered in relation to bank and insurance services, and also services connected with evaluation of real estate and works of art.

On December 13 2009, the CNNIC, the regulator of the .cn TLD, issued an urgent notice. The gist of the notice was that beginning at 9am on December 14 2009, no individuals are qualified to register a domain name. A domain name applicant is also required to submit a copy of the business licence (or a business bar code certificate) to the domain name registrar.

Article 29 of Law 3784/09 revises the provisions of the Unfair Competition Act regarding the limitations period for unfair competition claims.

In our previous columns we have emphasised the importance of exercising duty of candour in the prosecution and preparation of patent applications in Canada. In Ratiopharm Inc v Pfizer Limited, Mister Justice Hughes was very critical of "self-serving" statements in patent applications and found a patent invalid partly on the basis that the invention failed to live up to its claims of being "outstanding" and "markedly better than prior art compounds". In Lundbeck v Ratiopharm (2009), Madam Justice Mactavish revisited the duty of candour during prosecution and held a patent invalid despite the fact that the applicants had expressly drawn a particular piece of prior art to the examiner's attention and despite the fact that she considered the invention was neither anticipated by it nor obvious over it. Her rationale was that the applicants made the general statement that the prior art as a whole taught away from combining two compounds, whereas that was not true of the particular reference in question. This underscores the need to consider the impact of each known reference before making any sweeping generalisations in submissions to the examiner.

A new trend in US copyright cases could save litigants thousands of dollars in discovery costs. Simon Frankel, Shannon Nestor and John Freed explain how