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Ellie Mertens provides an overview of the biggest developments in some of Latin America’s most important countries for IP

Following the high-profile withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017, the remaining members agreed to move forward with a revised trade agreement called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP. The CPTPP came into force on December 30 2018 between the first six signatories, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore. Vietnam, the seventh country to ratify the new agreement, officially joined the CPTPP on January 14 2019.

Claims of seniority of national trade marks for European marks have the effect of allowing owners, if they cease to maintain local trade marks, to continue benefitting from the same rights they would have had if their national trade mark had been maintained.

A hotel in a skiing area known for its bar featuring scantily-clad dancing girls was found to have an infringing trade mark. The lower courts issued an injunction in a first partial judgment. A further partial judgment was made requesting accounts of the turnover earned in connection with the running of the bar and all advertisements made for it. Accounts are the basis for all claims of compensation and damages calculations. In this case, the question was which turnovers should be included. On further appeal to the Austrian Supreme Court, the Court upheld the lower courts' judgments. It ruled on this topic as follows.

To raise funds for research and development, start-ups sometimes have to announce the existence of licensing agreements, supply and distribution agreements etc. (i.e. a contract for a future sale of a product embodying an invention). In places like the US, if such agreements were made public more than one year prior to the effective filing date, even though the details of the invention are kept confidential, a statutory on-sale bar may be triggered, resulting in loss of patent protection for the invention in the US.

The Decree on Amendments to Trademark Law in force as of August 10 2018 introduced new legal concepts to the IP Law to update and reinforce the intellectual property system in Mexico.

The Federal Circuit ruled that the USPTO exceeded its authority by penalising patent owners for delays they could not have reasonably prevented

Sources at biotech companies and NPOs explain how the future enforceability of US cannabis patents in federal courts rests on whether UCANN v Pure Hemp is thrown out or not

In-house counsel explain that the convergence of technologies across different industries has brought new players and tech areas into these sectors and made analysing industry activity more difficult

Brazil’s IP policies are not quite Madrid-ready, and many changes will need to be made before it likely joins the Protocol later this year