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After filing a patent application, 18 months elapse before the application is published. After receiving a request for substance examination, the patent office starts the examination procedure. There may be cases where the application concerns questionable scientific substantiation of technical results on which the claimed invention is based.

On May 20 2019, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) started operating as an international searching authority (ISA) and international preliminary examining authority (IPEA). It now conducts search and preliminary examination of international applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) of the World Intellectual Property Organization. To encourage Filipino inventors, as well as higher educational institutions that are members of the Innovation and Technology Support Offices Network (ITSO), the IPOPHL has launched a programme waiving search and preliminary examination fees for the first 100 applicants which choose IPOPHL as the ISA or IPEA. Under this PCT Filing Assistance Program, foreign applicants from states included in WIPO's list of eligible nationals or residents may also avail of a 90% reduction of certain PCT fees. This programme is in effect until December 31 2019, or after 100 requests for ISRs have been filed, whichever comes first. The IPOPHL's Schedule of Fees as ISA can be found in the PCT Applicant's Guide – International Phase on the WIPO website. The Applicant's Guide also provides a few guidelines in relation to the IPOPHL's function as ISA, such as the conditions for refund and amount of refund of the search fee, whether the IPOPHL requires that nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence listings be furnished in electronic form, and which subject matter will not be searched, among others.

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), Lloyd's Asia, and Antares Underwriting Asia have launched an initiative to support innovative enterprises as they enter global markets. Called the Intellectual Property Insurance Initiative for Innovators (IPIII), the programme will give innovative enterprises access to insurance coverage for legal expenses that may be incurred in intellectual property (IP) infringement proceedings worldwide.

The reform of August 10 2018 to the Mexican Industrial Property Law substantially changed the Mexican trademark landscape. Among the most relevant changes brought by this legislative reform, particularly the acceptance on behalf of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) of non-conventional trademark applications – such as smell and sound trademarks – positions Mexico today at the forefront of innovation.

Zhifei An, Jian Zhang and Xiaoming Zhang of Liu Shen & Associates evaluate the impact of the IoT on data ownership, its relationship to blockchain, why the IoT is vulnerable to enforcement actions from NPEs and the race to patent technologies in this area

Laura Whiting and Alexandra Morgan of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer consider the reasons behind the adoption of the new SPC Manufacturing Waiver Regulation and reflect on whether the message sent out by the European institutions is consistent with their trade policy

Philip Lapin and Jamie-Lynn Kraft of Smart & Biggar assess developments in the Canadian trademark landscape, including the country’s accession to the Madrid Protocol, changes to the use requirement, amendments to the rules around distinctiveness and the ability to file applications for non-traditional trademarks

Youping Ma and Guoquan Yang of Bridgeon assess a recent case concerning AI in which, among other questions, the issue of whether a software developer can be an author was assessed

The most recent decision of the Düsseldorf Appeal Court of January 9 2019 (Case No. I-2 U 27/18) in the legal dispute concerning the active substance fulvestrant contributes to solidifying the new liability requirement of "sufficient scope of use". This was formulated by the court for the first time in the Östrogenblocker decision of May 5 2017 (Case No. I-2 W 6/17). Subject to the proceedings was European patent EP1272195B1, which protects the use of fulvestrant in the preparation of a medicament for the treatment of a patient with breast cancer who was previously treated with an aromatase inhibitor and tamoxifen and where such previous treatment failed.

Foreign applications for trademarks and designs are on the up, according to the UKIPO’s annual report, which also shows a decline in patent applications and a focus on workplace wellbeing