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The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPPhil) is inviting comments from the public on its proposed amendments to the rules and regulations governing the proceedings in administrative complaints for violation of intellectual property laws (infringement, unfair competition, etc), as well as other suggestions. The IPPhil's objective is to shorten the time it takes to issue decisions.

Norway’s new Trade Mark Act entered into force on July 1 2010. The new Act mainly represents a modernisation of the old Act and codification of existing case law, but nevertheless introduces a few practically important changes worth mention.

Over the last couple of years, plant breeders have become increasingly aware of patent rights on plants. Because of differences between the patent system on the one hand and the breeder's rights system on the other, a conflict has arisen between the breeders community, that, as a rule, is not often concerned with patent filing and the usually larger companies that file for patent protection regularly.

In a recent copyright infringement case (April 2010) in Malaysia [Suit No D5 (IP)-22-1152-2005], the local high court carefully reviewed certain key facts and legal precedents to meticulously analyse and rule on some important aspects of copyright infringement.

Article 19, section VII of the Mexican Industrial Property Law establishes, inter alia, that methods of therapeutic treatment applicable to the human body and to animals shall not be considered as inventions; as a result, such methods are expressly excluded from patentability. However, under Mexican law and practice, there is no exclusion of the possibility for patenting a (new or known) substance or compound for any specific use in a method of therapeutic treatment, as long as such use is new and the claims directed to this kind of matter are written under the first medical use format (compound X for use as a medicament and/or in the treatment of condition Y), or under the subsequent medical use format, also named second medical use format or Swiss-type format (the use of a compound X for manufacturing a medicament for treatment of disease Y).

The Korean Patent Act (KPA) includes a basis for patent invalidation that allows an applicant to file an invalidation action. This is based on a so-called principle of distribution of power, in which patent grant and invalidation is the exclusive authority of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) as the administrative agency, while judgment for the legal disputes regarding patent rights is the exclusive authority of the courts.

Alendronate is marketed by Merck as Fosomax, which has annual worldwide sales of over $1 billion.

The data appearing in the annual statistics published by the European Patent Office confirms Italy as one of the top 10 countries for the number of European patent applications filed per year.

Under the Japanese Patent Act, registration is required for an exclusive licensee to be able to assert its exclusivity directly against any third party , as opposed to requesting the licensor to do so. Specifically, a licensee who enters into an exclusive licence agreement with a patentee without registering such exclusive licence with the Japan Patent Office has no right to directly demand an infringer of the licensed patent to cease its infringement even within the field in which the licensee shall have the exclusivity under the licence agreement. Rather, a licensee needs to register certain information in the patent registry maintained in the Patent Office in order to obtain such right and become a true exclusive licensee. Under the current registration system, the exclusive licensee’s name and the scope of the licence shall be registered and such information shall be made available to the public; however, this registration system has been unpopular because licensees are generally reluctant to disclose information which may be considered business secrets.

Several amendments to the implementing regulations for the European Patent Convention (EPC) which entered into force on April 1 2010 and are intended to realign the European patent grant procedure under the initiative Raising the Bar lead to legal obscurities and uncertainties, in particular with respect to determining time limits to be observed under the EPC.