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There are a range of legal and practical reasons for foreign trade mark owners to record licences of their registered Chinese trade marks with the China Trade Mark Office (TMO). But recent changes to both the Trade Mark Law (TML) and other regulations mean that licensors can now avoid the headaches of recordation in most circumstances.

Where a substance or composition is already known in the art, it may still be patentable under Section 3(4) of the German Patent Law for a specific new and inventive use in a method for treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy. It was also decided by the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) that purpose-related product protection can be obtained for a use relating to a specific dosage instruction (BGH – Carvedilol II, BGH – Fettsäuren).

With the aim of reinforcing French national patents, France is contemplating (1) modifying the law concerning the national phase in France based on a PCT application and (2) introducing a national opposition. These changes are expected to be made in the near future (2015-16).

In a recent landmark judgment, Tech Plus Media Private Ltd v Jyoti Janda & Ors dated September 29 2014, the Delhi High Court laid down new law on the protection of databases under copyright law. The facts of the cases involved an industry publication house, in the sphere of information technology, which claimed copyright protection over its database, which was basically a compilation of existing customers, potential customers and their contact points. The suit was instituted against former employees who had founded a competing industry publication house on the grounds that they infringed the copyright of the plaintiff by using its databases, for the purposes of their new business.

The current Burundi Industrial Property Law came into force on July 28 2009 (the effective date). Trade mark registrations made after the effective date have 10-year terms from the filing date, indefinitely renewable for like terms. The 2009 Law repealed earlier trade mark law, under which trade marks were registered for indefinite terms.

Since the reform of IP proceedings in 2014, all appeals from the Austrian Patent Office are to be prosecuted before the Upper Provincial Court in Vienna (OLG Wien) with a further appeal to the Austrian Supreme Court (OGH). This change was demanded by the whole IP profession. It turned out to be successful since now the time from filing an appeal to a decision by the court is very much shorter than before.

After a long process, the draft of the new Copyright Law was finally enacted on September 16 2014 by the Indonesian Parliament. This new Law brings several significant changes. The changes are expected to give better protection to rights owners.

In June 2009, the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (COFEPRIS) defined biotechnological products for the first time (Article 222-bis of the regulation of health products). Before this definition, there was no difference in the evaluation and authorisation of a biotechnology product and a non-biotechnological product.

October 3 witnessed an event of significant legal import in Vietnam that attracted the attention of many practitioners in the IP field, and especially those concerned with methods of resolving .vn domain name cases via administrative measures. This notable event was the forced revocation of the domain name Amway2u.vn by VNNIC, the state body administering domain names in Vietnam, after its initial resistance to do so. It was a groundbreaking success in application of coercive administrative measures in domain name disputes in Vietnam.

As the United States continues its transition to the first-inventor-to-file (FITF) system, which became effective in March, 2013, it is worthwhile to recall that some situations give rise to exceptions that excuse strict application of first-to-file rules. Among these exceptions is the so-called first-to-publish exception which excuses an intervening publication by a third party which, although independent of the inventors' work, was published after a prior publication attributable to the inventors.