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In the absence of specific regulations, the ownership of inventions made by employees is governed by common law in India. Essenese Obhan and Sumathi Chandrashekaran, of Obhan and Associates in New Delhi, examine what this means for employers and employees

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Vietnam's regulations on the protection of plant varieties as stipulated in the current Law on Intellectual Property are fundamentally in compliance with the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, to which Vietnam is a party. However, the IP Law has some unclear issues regarding plant variety protection.

Registration on the USPTO's Principal Register offers valuable substantive benefits to a trade mark owner. However, certain marks – such as those that may be considered descriptive of certain features of the goods or services recited in the Application – are not eligible for registration on the Principal Register absent a showing of secondary meaning. If a trade mark owner is unable to obtain a registration on the Principal Register, there are still federal registration options available that can provide the owner with certain protections. One such option that a trade mark owner can consider is seeking registration on the PTO's Supplemental Register.

According to an article written by Judge Tsai, one of the eight judges of the IP Court, the approval rate for motions for evidence preservation orders (EPO) is lower than 20%.

Under current patent practice in the field of pharmaceutical inventions, it is required that a pharmaceutical invention be clearly defined by its pharmacological efficacy in terms of diagnosis, treatment, reduction and prevention of certain diseases. In exceptional cases, it is possible for a pharmaceutical invention to be defined by its pharmacological mechanism without clearly defining diseases for which the pharmaceutical invention is used.

The issue of divisional applications continues to keep the EPO busy on various levels. The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) has previously dealt extensively with the allowability of amendments to divisional applications in decisions G 1/05 and G 1/06, and a new set of rules, aimed at limiting the number of divisional applications, will enter into force in 2010. Despite the EPO's past efforts to clarify the procedural peculiarities of divisionals, a new question has now arisen, which the EBA is to consider in pending case G 1/09.

The Indonesian Commercial Court has raised the hopes of trade mark owners facing the grim and costly task of tackling trade mark infringers in Indonesia.

The Federal Court recently issued a decision in which the plaintiff in an infringement action had filed a disclaimer shortly before litigation. A disclaimer is a means by which a patentee states that he or she no longer wishes to claim a right over part or all of a claim because the claim as allowed is too broad by reason of mistake, accident, or inadvertence on the part of the patentee.

The Uganda Registrar General announced on June 10 2009 that the Nice Classification, 9th edition must be used. Some practitioners concluded that service mark applications could be filed and sundry news items appeared to that effect. However, discussion with the authorities confirmed that the 1952 law would have to be amended to provide for service marks and, accordingly, that the Registry is not yet open for them.