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Utynam was in Cartagena in December for the ASIPI annual conference. Here are some of the highlights

Are you ready for the fundamental changes coming to trade mark law and practice in Europe? Over the next four pages, we provide pointers for steps you need to consider – and when. By James Nurton

On September 30 2015, the Mexican Internal Revenue Service published in the Official Federal Gazette updated foreign commerce dispositions including those applicable to products such as jewellery, clothing, footwear, tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, pharmaceuticals and software, regarding the obligation to state the principal word mark, design, name-and-design or three-dimensional mark in the manifesto exhibited to Customs. The effective date of the dispositions was November 1.

The America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011 introduced a number of changes to the US patent system, including significantly increasing the options available for challenging the validity of a granted patent. Among these options it is the process of post grant review, a trial proceeding at the new Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which holds the most in common with opposition before the European Patent Office.

A US company MD Science Lab filed a trade mark application number 2012718142 for Swiss Navy in respect of goods in class 5 (pharmaceuticals). The patent office refused the registration because the claimed designation includes the word element Swiss. In the opinion of the patent office the word "swiss" would be confusing with regard to the location of the applicant and place of production of goods because the applicant is a US resident. For the sake of justice it should be noted that not so many Russians would understand that this Latin word combination means.

The TIPO's accelerated examination programme (AEP) has been in operation for over six years since the launch of its pilot version in 2009. According to a statistics report of the TIPO, by the end of November 2015, the conditions for requesting AEP and the average corresponding examination time are as follows:

Myanmar's general election, which took place on November 8, was the first nationwide vote since the military junta's dissolution in 2011. It was also the first poll contested by opposition party the National League for Democracy (NLD) in 25 years. Rapid economic reforms since 2011 have resulted in enormous growth opportunities. With the NLD winning a sweeping majority in both houses of parliament, the country now enters a transitional phase with the quasi-civilian government gradually transferring power to the NLD.

The US Supreme Court issued two rulings on trade mark cases in 2015, but the most significant opinion may have come from the Federal Circuit, when it issued a split en banc ruling in The Slants case

In recent years, the ITC and Federal Circuit slowly closed the door on the assertion of method claims at the ITC. The Suprema decision reversed the trend, but may have opened the door wide enough for direct infringement claims to again pass through, argue John Haynes and Adam D Swain

Genentech, the plaintiff, owns a patent for an invention titled "vascular endothelial cell growth factor antagonists". Genentech filed an application for the registration of patent term extension in relation to the patent asserting that Genentech obtained an approval of partial changes in manufacturing approval (the disposition), which added a new dosage and administration for its medicine Avastin, whose general name is bevacizumab (the medicine). Regarding the medicine, there was a prior disposition that differs only in dosage and administration.