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Batur Oktay is head of IP at Starbucks and manages teams in both Seattle and Shanghai. He has worked at the company for 19 years, watching its meteoric rise to a brand with 17,000 stores in 82 countries. He tells Sanjana Kapila about the history behind the ‘Starbucks’ trademark, what he does to relax after work and the growing role of patents in the business.

Panellists at the International Women’s Leadership Forum discussed how 2020 has altered their profession, and why diversity and empathy are more important than ever

Taiwan's IP Office (TIPO) has revised the current design examination benchmark in a bid to keep pace with the development of emerging technologies, and also to institutionalise the regulations and practices. The amendment which will take effect on November 1 2020 is substantially as follows:

Korea Seed Industry Act (KSIA) and its Implementing Regulation, effective as of June 19 2020, a person who intends to sell propagating materials of certain types of foreign plant varieties should report this fact to the Ministry for Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA), along with submission of evidence proving that such propagating materials have been "legally obtained" (Article 38 of KSIA, Article 27 of Implementing Regulation thereof). In other words, in order to sell propagating materials of foreign plant varieties in Korea, a seed supplier shall have a duty to prove that he has lawfully acquired the same.

October 31 2020, marked the closing of the public comment period for Thailand's proposed amendments to the Patent Act B.E. 2522 (1979). The Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) had published its latest draft of the amendments on September 30 for the month-long period of public feedback.

The first instance Civil Court for Intellectual and Industrial Rights (IP court) in its decision rendered in October 2020 pointed out that the use of the subject mark as a domain name solely is not deemed sufficient to prove the use of the mark as a trademark.

In the first English court decision to consider the issue of AI inventorship, the High Court has held that an AI system cannot be considered an inventor under the Patent Act 1977.

A decade ago, intellectual property lawsuits were rarely handled by Vietnamese courts. They have become more common in recent years, but almost always with overseas IP owners in the plaintiff role, charging local Vietnamese entities with infringement, piracy, or counterfeiting.

On August 28 2020, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced that the "soft-opening period" to refile trademarks under the country's new Trademark Act would begin on October 1 2020. This period, which is open to holders of trademarks recorded under Myanmar's old system and to trademark owners who can prove prior use of their trademarks in the country, is expected to run for six months, though no closing date was stipulated in the MOC announcement. The date of the eventual "grand opening" of the Intellectual Property Department (IPD) will be the filing date for all applications submitted during the soft-opening period.

In New Zealand, trademark non-use revocation actions can be defended by showing there are special circumstances justifying the non-use (Trade Marks Act 2002 (NZ), Section 67, 66(2)). This article explores the framework for assessing special circumstances in New Zealand and discusses recent case law that deals with this issue.