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China's State Administrations for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) released the long-awaited Rules on the Prohibition of Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights for the Purpose of Eliminating or Restricting Competition on April 7 2015, which will become effective as of August 1 2015. The IPR Abuse Rules deal with manifold issues such as the determination of patent holder's market dominance, compulsory licensing, standard essential patents (SEPs) and safe harbour in horizontal and vertical agreements settings.

Recently video technology has advanced notably. For example, new style televisions incorporating new video technology such as 3D TV (televisions having the function of displaying stereoscopic video images) or 4K TV and 8K TV (televisions having the function of displaying video images at 4K or 8K resolution) have been introduced one after another.

On January 6 2006 a Benelux trade mark application for the word "ius" was filed for services in classes 35 and 42. The Benelux Office for Intellectual Property refused the mark for lack of distinctive character, arguing that "the sign 'ius' (Latin for law) is descriptive for the services in classes 35 and 42 relating to legal issues". Even though counter arguments were filed with the Benelux Office, the refusal of the mark became final and an appeal with the Court of Appeal Brussels was filed. In 2009, the Court of Appeal ordered that the Benelux application for ius should be registered. This decision was cancelled by the Cassation Court and returned to the Court of Appeal Brussels.

Using the patenting of an innovation as a commercial argument is as old as patenting itself which dates from the early 19th century.

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand has issued the first New Zealand decision on wrong way round confusion (TomTom International BV v TomTom Communications Limited [2015] NZIPOTM 2). If it stands, this decision is a cautionary tale for smaller businesses that may not be able to prevent another business with a large reputation entering the market with an identical mark, even where there is evidence of consumer confusion.

The EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal has held that patents on plants produced by essentially biological process are not excluded from patentability. But Claudia E Unsin and Joseph P Taormino say this is not the end of the debate over the use of patented material by plant breeders

Publication of design patent applications under the Hague Agreement for the Registration of Industrial Designs increases the value of provisional rights in the United States, as Brent M Dougal explains

The new office in Western Australia will be led by Mary Turonek

After over six years of review, and 10 days of high-level delegation meetings, the Lisbon Union members have finally adopted a new treaty that will cover geographical indications (GIs) and open up membership to intergovernmental organisations

A dispute between DC Comics and Rihanna over the name Robyn, Lycos putting its patent portfolio up for sale, Rockstar objecting to a BBC film about it, a copyright case over the song Happy Birthday to You, and Alibaba being sued by the owner of Gucci were in the IP headlines in the past week