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On June 27 2016, the Court of Appeals (CA) denied Nestlé's petition to prevent the registration of San Miguel Corporation's trade mark application for San Mig Coffee Mild Sugar Free Label Design filed with the Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL) on June 7 2005.

In the early 1960s, patent practice was quiet and inventors often faced a hostile environment. But then, like now, new technologies were emerging to reshape business and the economy. Across North America, innovative lawyers set up boutique firms that would transform the market, many of which still exist today. Fifty years on, Jakob Schnaidt tells their story

Three years on from the launch of Russia’s specialist IP Court, Natalia Gulyaeva reviews some landmark cases and looks at lessons learned

Our columnist Utynam has been inspired by the recent Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro to seek out sport-related IP news

Lady Gaga (through Ate My Heart Inc) owns several EU trade marks for the name for a multitude of goods and services. The services that mattered in this case are "entertainment" in class 41 contained in several of these word marks.

Copyright offers a potentially powerful tool for addressing piracy in China of logo marks and stylised word marks in the context of oppositions and invalidations. The protection offered applies regardless of the goods or services covered by the pirated mark.

In Taiwan, a design must be "original" to be patentable. Since a design that simulates a known object is not original as required by the Patent Law, a "test for originality" will be applied in determining the patentability of a design over a piece of prior art. According to the Examination Guidelines published by Taiwan's IP Office, to determine whether two designs are similar, the designs shall be viewed from the naked eyes of ordinary consumers without the aid of any instrument. Moreover, as a design patent in Taiwan protects only the visually appreciable appearance of an article of manufacture, the mechanical function and construction of the article, as well as the operation processes involved in the use of the article are all excluded from design patent protection.

July saw two orders from two courts in the country, issuing different orders on the same issue of granting John Doe orders. John Doe orders refer to a court granting injunctions on unknown and unlisted defendants. The decisions appear to pose different thresholds for John Doe orders.

As Suntory and Asahi settle their patent dispute over non-alcoholic beer, John A Tessensohn surveys the state of litigation in Japan, and compares it with the United States

Recently, the Korean Supreme Court made a key decision regarding how to read the prior art when making an inventive step determination (2013 Hu 2873 and 2880 (consolidated), January 14 2016).