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Recent intellectual property news includes the overturn of GSK’s $235m award, European organisations’ Brexit statement, a Blackberry patent suit against Snap, Lindsay Lohan’s appeal against a video game maker, the briefs in the WesternGeco case at the US Supreme Court and a jury verdict favoring the plaintiff in a false advertising case

Counsel at Alexion, Sarepta, Daniel and Di Blasi say the patent backlog and a Supreme Court case on patent terms are high on their agendas

David Stone is a London-based partner and global head of intellectual property at Allen & Overy. He sits part time as a deputy High Court judge and juggles his busy career with teaching IP at various institutions. He tells Sanjana Kapila why he struggles with delayed trains and the advice he would give his younger self.

In In re Alabama Tourism Department, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) issued an uncommon refusal to register under Section 2(b) of the Lanham Act the mark shown below owned by the Alabama Tourism Department (ATD), on the ground that the mark includes a simulation of the United States flag. In doing so, the TTAB sent a reminder that the benefits of federal registration may not be available to marks incorporating flag designs.

On January 15 2020, US President Donald Trump and Chinese vice-premier He Liu signed a trade agreement which President Trump has described as "the biggest deal anybody has ever seen." The deal promises to be the first phase of a larger new trade agreement between the US and China, announcing a significant de-escalation in the trade war between the two giants that has dragged along for more than one year. Of particular interest to those in the pharmaceutical industry will be Sections C and D of the first chapter of the trade agreement, which outline China's commitments to improve protection and enforcement of pharmaceutical-related patent rights, and in particular to creating an effective mechanism for early resolution of patent disputes between generic drug companies and pharmaceutical innovators, or a Chinese drug patent linkage system, as many may like to put it.

In a much awaited preliminary decision, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on April 2 2020 (C-567/18 Coty Germany GmbH v Amazon Services Europe Sarl et al) on the responsibilities of Amazon warehouse-keepers in relation to the sale by a third-party seller on the online marketplace, Amazon Marketplace, of perfume bottles for which the rights had not been exhausted.

Unfortunately, Mexico remains on the Watch List of the Annual Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Protection and Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy compiled by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this document, the United States government reviews and evaluates the protection actions that governments have taken to fight against counterfeits and piracy. The document concluded that the Mexican government has so far not adequately implemented the necessary actions for the protection of intellectual property rights.

The city of Manila was placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) on March 16 2020 and all government offices and private businesses except those providing essential services, were required to work from home or closed. Public transportation was suspended, and everyone was required to practise social distancing and wear face masks.

It is often time that matters in business. For trademarks, a prompt registration is probably the single most important issue in all areas of business, not just in the fashion industry. In Korea, it takes approximately one to 1.2 years to obtain a registered trademark using the regular system. However, this period can be shortened substantially if one uses fast-track examination.

Traditional IP enforcement measures are sometimes ill-equipped to deal with the rapidly evolving nature of internet resources in the digital era. Thailand has been responding to the exponential rise of online IP infringement on a rolling basis – most recently in 2017 when it amended the Computer Crime Act (CCA) to give IP owners the option of blocking websites that post IP-infringing content. This is set out in Section 20(3) of the law.