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The Indonesian Parliament finally passed the draft new Patent Law on July 28 2016. This new Patent Law has recently been introduced as Law Number 13 of 2016, and is to replace Law Number 14 of 2001 on Patents.

Vietnam applies the first-to-file principle for trade mark registration and does not require evidence of use or intent to use at the time of filing, or for renewal. For maintaining a registration, though, a trade mark owner or its licensee must use the mark or risk cancellation for non-use. The IP Law stipulates that if a mark has not been used by its owner or a licensee without justifiable reasons for five consecutive years prior to a request for cancellation, except where the use is commenced or resumed at least three months before the request, the registration is vulnerable to cancellation. However, the trade mark owner is not required to submit evidence of use on a regular basis – only when the mark is attacked for non-use.

The draft Industrial Property Law in Turkey was passed by the main and sub commissions of the Science, Industry and Technology Ministry with minor amendments on May 5 2016. As shared in the issue of May 25 2016, one of the most debated issues was the international exhaustion principle, accepted for any kind of IP rights.

A recent but interesting order relates to an injunction issued against Youtube in Tata Sky Ltd v Youtube LLC, directing Youtube to take down videos that gave instructions on circumventing of the encryption system employed in Tata Sky's set-top boxes. This allowed users to view content made available by Tata Sky that they had not paid for. The recent order in August 2016 involved a variation to an earlier interim injunction issued in 2015 against Youtube. The interim injunction originally directed Youtube to ensure that the Tata Sky trade mark is not used on its website without written authorisation and to remove such circumvention tutorials. Youtube also apparently complied with taking down the allegedly offending videos. Tata Sky did not assert copyright on the videos itself.

An applicant filed a trade mark application for Halloween in respect of goods in classes 4, 9, 16, 21, 24-26 and 28 (see picture).

The court structure in Sweden for IP matters has recently been reformed and a specialized Patent and Market Court is being established to take over all patent-related cases within the next couple of years. The new Court will handle all IP, marketing and competition law cases and is operational as of September 1 2016. The new specialised court replaces the former Court of Patent Appeals and Market Court, as well as the civil disputes in the field handled by Stockholm District Court.

On July 19 2016, the Supreme Court (SC), in GR 204605, entitled Intellectual Property Association of the Philippines (IPAP) v Hon. Paquito Ochoa, in his capacity as Executive Secretary, et al, ruled that the Madrid Protocol is an executive agreement and that its ratification by President Aquino is valid and constitutional.

Recently, the Australian Patent Office has allowed a patent application for an unfertilised ovum in an application directed to the parthenogenic activation of human oocytes for production of human stem cells.

The US Federal Trade Commission is clamping down on native advertising and the use of endorsements on social media. A settlement with Lord & Taylor in March provides a number of lessons for brands, as outlined by Meryl Bernstein

Last month, Utynam attended the 30th MARQUES Annual Conference in Villaitana, near Alicante