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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unveiled his government’s 19-point Action Plan to promote and support start-ups in India. Under Action Plan 4, qualifying start-ups will receive government support in obtaining IP rights

We often see unauthorised repeated filings of trade marks that are similar to other parties' well-known trade marks. Even though in most cases the proprietors of the well-known trade marks successfully cancel the conflicting trade mark at the Commercial Court and get a final and binding decision, it does not necessarily stop the conflicting party filing modified versions of the trade marks at the Trademark Office. However, things may be changing for the better, at least from the perspective of the Commercial Court.

The America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011 introduced a number of changes to the US patent system, including significantly increasing the options available for challenging the validity of a granted patent. Among these options it is the process of post grant review, a trial proceeding at the new Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which holds the most in common with opposition before the European Patent Office.

On September 29 2015, the Philippines deposited its instrument of accession to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which entered into force on December 28 2015. The Protocol is a supplementary agreement to the 1992 CBD, and the latter's instrument for the implementation of its third objective, the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources with the end view of contributing to the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable development and human well-being.

Of the total population of the Netherlands of 16.8 million people, 2.2 million have seen the final episode of the second season of "Heel Holland bakt". This makes it one of the most popular television shows in the Netherlands of the past few years.

IP enforcement in Vietnam saw continued development in the past year. As we have reported previously, 2014 saw several breakthrough cases in patent infringement, domain name dispute resolution and other areas. In 2015, the law continued to evolve as more and more complex questions arose.

The concept of establishing trade mark use plays a central role in brand protection. In addition to forming one of the requirements in trade mark infringement actions, establishing trade mark use mitigates the risk of expungement proceedings due to non-use.

The TIPO's accelerated examination programme (AEP) has been in operation for over six years since the launch of its pilot version in 2009. According to a statistics report of the TIPO, by the end of November 2015, the conditions for requesting AEP and the average corresponding examination time are as follows:

A US company MD Science Lab filed a trade mark application number 2012718142 for Swiss Navy in respect of goods in class 5 (pharmaceuticals). The patent office refused the registration because the claimed designation includes the word element Swiss. In the opinion of the patent office the word "swiss" would be confusing with regard to the location of the applicant and place of production of goods because the applicant is a US resident. For the sake of justice it should be noted that not so many Russians would understand that this Latin word combination means.

2015 was an eventful year for the IP regime in Singapore. Many IP milestone events occurred in 2015, especially in the patents sector. The accessibility, interoperability and quality of the IP landscape in Singapore can be seen in this summary of important 2015 events.