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The direction of drug discovery has moved from focusing on low molecular weight compounds to biopharmaceuticals, and the percentage of biopharmaceuticals being sold is increasing. The first biosimilar patent litigation was also filed.

In September 2017, the Malaysian government exercised its right to exploit Gilead's patented drug, Sofosbuvir, used for the treatment of Hepatitis C without Gilead's authorisation. The Malaysian government proceeded with the exercise of its rights despite Gilead's announcement of the extension of its voluntary licensing scheme for the supply of licensed generic Sofosbuvir to Malaysia. This is the second time that Malaysia has exercised its government rights to exploit a patented invention without the authorisation of the rights holder. The first time was in 2003, when the government exercised its rights for the supply of affordable HIV/AIDS drugs patented by GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb after failed lengthy price negotiations with the patent owners.

With the cloud of uncertainty around what Brexit will look like, it is worth clarifying the effect, or lack of effect it will have on European patents and the UK.

A declaration of invalidity for EU device mark with word element 'la mafia - se sienta a la mesa' for goods and services in Classes 25, 35 and Class 43 lodged by the Italian Republic was upheld by the Board of Appeal of the EUIPO and confirmed as contrary to public policy as set out in Article 7(1)(f) of Regulation No 207/2009, now Article 7(1)(f) of Regulation 2017/1001. The owner of the contested sign filed an appeal against this decision before the Court of First Instance.

China just passed the long-awaited E-commerce Law, which will be effective from January 1 2019. While consumer protection is a key focus of the E-commerce Law, the new law represents some recent movement regarding IP protection in China.

It has been a longstanding practice in Taiwan for patent invalidation actions to be examined in written form and conducted using a pleading-and-defence template in which the two opposing parties are allowed to alternately present their contentions in writing. Taiwan's IP Office (hereinafter referred to as TIPO), upon receipt of the brief/counterstatement lodged by either party, will serve a copy on the other party, along with a notification for filing a response. After the two parties have exhausted their views and have no new evidence to file or TIPO believes that the observations and evidence submitted are sufficient, TIPO will proceed to examine all the documents/materials on file. Under this practice, none of the documents/materials on file can be divulged to the public, and the examination process could be rather lengthy.

Several years ago, a company registered a trade mark no 616808 on application no 2015721705 with priority of June 14 2015 for services in Class 41.

The European Patent Office uses the well-established problem-and-solution approach when assessing inventive step (cf. Guidelines for Examination at the EPO G.VII 5). A crucial part of this analysis is the starting point, known as the "closest prior art".

It is widely known that amendments to the Mexican Law of Industrial Property which have an impact on trade marks came into full force on August 10 2018. Especially relevant is the Declaration of Effective Use (DOU) to preserve trade mark protection. A first DOU is provided for those registrations granted from August 10 2018 and must be filed within three months of the third anniversary of the date of grant of the registration. Failure to file the DOU will cause the registration to lapse. In turn, for renewal purposes, a DOU must be filed. In both cases the DOU's must specify the goods/services for which the trade mark is effectively in use in Mexico. Protection will remain only for those specific goods or services.

The Global Innovation Index 2018 report released in July 2018 ranked Singapore fifth among 126 innovative nations around the world. Singapore retained its first place ranking in Asia for the fifth year running and is only found to be less innovative than Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Singapore's strong performance in the Global Innovation Index is attributed to the various government initiatives and programmes launched to spur and protect innovation in the city-state.