Search results for

Coronil, an ayurvedic drug (formulation of herbs and minerals) developed by Patanjali Ayurved that was initially promoted as a cure for the COVID-19 virus and later approved to be sold as an immunity booster to fight Coronavirus, has run into a controversy. A Chennai-based company Arudra Engineering (Arudra) filed a suit before the Madras High Court, alleging trademark infringement. Arudra sought an injunction restraining Patanjali Ayurved (Patanjali) and Divya Yog Mandir Trust, subsequently impleaded as a defendant, from using the mark "Coronil" or any deceptive variation.

The Indonesian government has established a compulsory licence framework in anticipation of a COVID-19 vaccine. The framework also applies to national defence and security patents.

The Myanmar Customs Department (MCD) organised another Intellectual Property Awareness and Product Identification Workshop at its Customs Training School in Yangon on August 6 2020, for its frontline customs officers. Such workshops are held several times every year, serving as a platform for foreign brand owners and their local representatives to educate and update the enforcement officers on methods for differentiating their genuine products from counterfeits and imitations when inspecting suspicious shipments at ports of entry into the country. The training sessions are also useful in encouraging collaborative discourse between the private and public sectors to improve the efficiency of their joint intellectual property rights enforcement efforts.

Entering a foreign market for one's products is usually made through direct investment or by way of licensing, such as forging a distributorship agreement. Such an agreement will be the law for the parties. For agreements involving the Philippines, other than the provisions stated in it, other laws relevant to said agreement are deemed included and must be complied with. An example is Article 19 of the Civil Code on the abuse of rights. Article 19 sets certain standards which must be observed not only in the exercise of one's rights but also in the performance of one's duties, i.e. to act with justice; to give everyone his due; and to observe honesty and good faith.

A Chinese company "Wedo Tools Co" trading in hand tools established dealership relations with a Russian company which became its exclusive distributor in Russia. The parties concluded a distributorship agreement after which the Russian company registered its company name as "Wedo Rus." The parties also concluded another agreement according to which the designation "Wedo" should be registered in Russia as a trademark in the name of the Chinese company.

With many employees in Thailand working outside their company's normal IT security fence, their increased use of their own computers and devices instead of those in their offices with standard or enhanced security mechanisms has made it more challenging for employers to control access to key business information. In the rush to set up a fully or partially remote workforce, most companies have had little time to establish work-from-home guidelines on protection of their valuable intangible assets like trade secrets and confidential business information. The need for sufficient internal guidelines on copying files to USB drives, emailing files to personal accounts, and uploading to cloud storage is already widely recognised, but who could have imagined the need for rules precluding sharing proprietary information over Zoom, Skype, Webex, and such programs?

An IP court has accepted the discovery of evidence demand made by an originator company against a generic pharmaceutical company after the court's expert panel confirmed that patent infringement had occurred, but has then rejected the originator's request for a preliminary injunction due to the so-called Bolar exemption.

Are importers and distributors responsible for patent infringement related to the products they import and distribute? This seemingly simple question has still only been partially answered in Vietnam, when the Superior People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City rendered a judgment on July 28 2020 sending a case back to the first-instance court for a retrial.

The EU Digital Services Act could hand brand owners their best opportunity in two decades to tackle online counterfeiting, says Måns Sjöstrand, global head of IP and brand protection at Daniel Wellington

Managing IP rounds up the latest trademark, copyright and patent news, including some stories you might have missed