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India has only recently introduced product patents. Ramesh C Dhawan and Sunaina Koul of Lall Lahiri & Salhotra consider what impact the changes will have on multinational companies, the local industry and public health

Advertising regulation involves the interaction of trade mark, copyright and competition law. Jatin Trivedi and Prateek Garg of YJ Trivedi & Co review decisions on what constitutes ''disparaging advertising'' in India

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.

On June 15 2009, eight member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, launched the first regional patent cooperation program called the ASEAN Patent Examination Cooperation (ASPEC). It is a program in which the Intellectual Property Offices of the participating member states shall use the search and examination results of one participating state as reference in its one member state's own search and examination. The objectives of the ASPEC are reduced examination work, faster turnaround time and better search and examination because some IP offices might have better access to databases unavailable to the other IP offices.

The Major Events Management Act came into force in 2007 to provide greater protection to sponsors of important events from ambush marketing. The legislation provides protection for major events and protection for emblems and words relating to the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games.

Five years after the entry into force of Community Regulation No 1383/03 relating to Customs control measures, it is now time to draw the initial conclusions, all positive, regarding its effectiveness. The European Commission has published, for the year 2008, data that confirm a significant increase in Customs activity:

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.