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The right of trademark owners to exclude others from using identical or similar marks has been limited by the principle of trademark exhaustion. Once a trademark owner has placed products on the market, the right of a trademark owner to control further circulation of its trademarked product is exhausted. The resale by the first purchaser of the original products is not deemed as trademark infringement. Although there are no provisions regarding the exhaustion of trademark rights under China's Trademark Law, Chinese courts typically uphold this doctrine.

On June 4 2019, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) issued a cease and desist order and surcharge payment order to KOA ISEI Co LTD (KOA ISEI) under the provisions of the Antimonopoly Act.

The legal provisions regarding the pricing of pharmaceutical products have been amended several times during the last decade in an effort to address the issue of very high pharma expenditure and its impact on hospitals and the social security system and to create a stable and predictable reference pricing framework.

Increasingly, law firms strive for a solely digital file system without significant use of paper files. A fully digital deadline management system seems to be the logical consequence.

We have previously discussed Myanmar's new law on trademarks. It should also be noted that the same law is also the primary legislation on the protection of geographical indications (GIs) in Myanmar. Chapter 16 (Sections 53 to 60) of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Law No. 3 of 2019, fully titled the Trademark and Geographical Indications Law (TGIL), deals exclusively with GIs, and this is our summary of its contents, as well as our recommendations for those interested in registering GIs in Myanmar under the TGIL.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has released a discussion paper inviting submissions on potential amendments to New Zealand's patent, trademark, and design legislation.

As Taiwan is not a signatory to the Budapest Treaty, the effect of a deposit made in an international depositary under the Budapest Treaty is generally not recognised in Taiwan. Accordingly, even though a biological material has been deposited in an international depositary in order to meet the enabling requirement, the applicant is still required to make a corresponding deposit in a domestic depositary designated by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). A late deposit will be deemed valid only if the certificates of deposit issued by both the international and domestic depositaries are filed before a statutory deadline, i.e. within four months from the filing date or sixteen months from the earliest priority date claimed, whichever is applicable. Further, in the event that a deposit is deemed invalid, the applicant may file a request for reinstatement of the deposit procedure within thirty days from the day following the cessation of the cause for delay.

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.

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

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