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Taiwan's Council of Grand Justices issued Interpretation No 761 on February 9 2018, addressing the issue of whether or not judges and technical examiners at the Intellectual Property Court (hereinafter referred to as IP Court) are obliged to abide by Article 19.3 of the law on administrative litigation. According to this Article, after a judge has participated in hearing a civil action that is related to an administrative litigation action filed subsequently, they must abstain from taking up adjudication of the administrative litigation action.

In the case of Christian Louboutin SAS v Abubaker & Ors, a single judge of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court summarily dismissed a trade mark infringement and passing off suit on May 18 2018, without issuing summons to the defendants, holding that use of a single colour rather than a combination of colours does not qualify as a mark under Section 2(1)(m) and as a trade mark under Section 2(1)(zb) of the Trademarks Act 1999 (hereinafter the Act).

Denim giant Levi Strauss & Co has recently won a trade mark infringement case against Dutch retail chain Hema concerning its famous V-shaped stitching on the back pockets of its jeans.

An applicant obtained a patent for design No 83063 concerning a bathtub. An interested person opposed the grant of the patent averring that the patent did not satisfy the patentability criteria, i.e. novelty and originality.

All government agencies such as the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) are directed to promote the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in resolving disputes and cases. This is mandated by the ADR Act of 2004. In the IPOPHL the rules concerning mediation procedure are provided in Office Order No 154. This took effect on October 5 2010. Since then, all cases filed with the adjudication bureau of the IPOPHL, the Bureau of Legal Affairs (BLA), such as oppositions, cancellations, and intellectual property violations, are referred to mediation, after the answer has been filed. Since 2010, the office of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Services under the BLA, has settled an average of 1/3 of said referred cases, which has greatly lightened the backlog of undecided cases at the BLA. Under 154, the referral to mediation is mandatory, but the mediation itself is voluntary.

Turkey has welcomed the new Intellectual Property Code (the IP Code) numbered 6769. This came into force on January 10 2017.

The big questions remaining after the Supreme Court’s SAS ruling include how institution rates will change, how strategy at the Board should evolve, and how district courts and the Federal Circuit will react. Michael Loney investigates

The decision of the Full Federal Court in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Consumer Healthcare Investments (Ireland) (No 2) Limited v Generic Partners Pty Limited (2018) FCAFC 71 (May 10 2018) indicates that a mistake in a claim cannot be ignored even where the skilled person understands that a mistake has been made. For infringement of claim 1 of Australian Patent No 2001260212 to have been made out by GSK, it was necessary for the term "reciprocating basket" to mean "reciprocating cylinder" or for the term "reciprocating basket" to be ignored altogether.

The Kenyan authorities have published a bill, the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2018 (the Bill), which proposes significant changes to two pieces of IP legislation.

In a recent ruling by the Court of The Hague (ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2018: 4591) a defendant/patentee has been ordered to pay the costs of nullity proceedings brought against it, despite not wishing to maintain or assert its patent.