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Bayer Corporation's petition to the High Court of Delhi to enforce patent linkage in India was dismissed with costs fixed at a deterrent amount. The respondents to the petition included the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), and generic drug maker CIPLA.

In September, the Indonesian legislature passed the controversial Film Law. The law has been criticised for its contentious local film content quotas and for creating unnecessary administration. The law also creates a number of IP issues that are causing concern in the local film industry.

In the recent case of Ratiopharm Inc v Pfizer Limited (2009) FC711 Mr Justice Hughes has again emphasised the important of exercising the utmost good faith in the drafting and prosecution of patent applications. In this chemical case, he was highly critical of the draftsperson for including phrases such as "unexpectedly", "unique", and "outstandingly suitable" as being "self-serving" and inconsistent with the facts apparent from the record of the invention. Hughes found that the words could not have come from the inventors, but "could only have come from the Pfizer patent department".

Personal data and data privacy are governed in Argentina by Law N° 25,326 (Personal Data Protection Law). The main objective of the Argentine personal data protection legal regime is the full protection of personal data recorded in data files, registries, databases, or other technical means of data treatment, either public or private, for the purpose of providing reports in order to guarantee the honour and individual privacy, as well as the access to information that may be recorded about such persons, in accordance with the provisions of Section 43, third paragraph of the Argentine Constitution.

Singapore's Human Cloning and Other Prohibited Practices Act (hereafter the "Human Cloning Act") came into force on October 1 2004 and has been in force for five years. The Act does not prohibit the creation of human embryos up to the 14th day of development or harvesting stem cells from such embryos for research purposes. The Human Cloning Act therefore provides for a relatively liberal environment in Singapore for stem cell research.

Under Section 18 of the Thai Trade Mark Act, applicants are entitled to appeal to the Board of Trade Marks when the Trade Mark Registrar initially finds their mark unregistrable, and the decision of the Board shall be deemed final. However, many trade mark owners file a complaint appealing the Board's decision with the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court (IP&IT Court), and later file an appeal with the Supreme Court if the IP&IT Court rules against them.

Liliana Chaveznava, David Zamores and Felipe Gutierrez of Panamericana de Patentes y Marcas illustrate the tricky distinction between descriptive and suggestive trade marks

In June 2009, the National Assembly adopted amendments to Vietnam's Criminal Code regarding copyright and related rights offences. Once the amendments take effect on January 1 2010, pursuant to Article 170a, anyone who copies or distributes copyright protected works to the public on a commercial scale without the permission of the copyright owner will be subject to a fine of between D50 million ($2,800) and D500 million ($27,800) or non-custodial reform for up to two years. Convicted offenders may also be banned from holding certain posts, practising certain occupations or doing certain jobs for one to five years.

Supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) have been the subject of several rulings. In the Dutch briefing of the October 2009 issue of MIP, the recent European Court of Justice ruling is discussed. This ruling allows the granting of more than one SPC to different parties based on the same marketing authorisation. Additionally, in September 2009 the court in The Hague (Rechtbank 's-Gravenhage) issued two decisions in SPC cases.

Since its creation in 2005, Japan's IP High Court has been viewed and often criticised as being quite harsh with patent holders because the rate of invalidation of patents in patent infringement cases by the court has been quite high. It is unclear whether the court is responding to such criticism, but at least one of its four divisions has begun rendering multiple opinions that almost appear to emulate the tests for determining inventive step in the European Patent Office (EPO) examination guidelines, and which also resemble at least part of the CAFC's former (pre-KSR) teaching-suggestion-motivation (TSM) test on obviousness in the US.