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According to the Taiwan Copyright Act, copyrightable works are protected upon completion in Taiwan. Registration, publication or marking is not required. Therefore, if an author does not identify his/her name and contact information on his/her work, it would be difficult for a person intending to use the author's work to contact the author to obtain a licence.

In 1992, the National Office of Intellectual Property of Vietnam (NOIP) refused a trade mark application due to its confusing similarity to the unregistered, but well-known, McDonald's trade mark of the US fast-food chain. This refusal was based merely on the reputation of the mark, as McDonald's – at the time – had not yet used or shown any intention to use the mark in Vietnam. This was the very first case involving a well-known mark in Vietnam.

Owners of marks that are well-known outside the United States may find that an American company has attempted to take advantage of the renown of the foreign mark by obtaining a trade mark registration for such mark in the United States. While Article 6(bis) of the Paris Convention provides the owner of a famous foreign trade mark with a basis for asserting and sustaining a claim of priority in the US over a US registrant, this provision does not provide a basis for cancelling a US registration absent use of the mark in the US.

In a first for Australia, the Competition Commission has launched action against Pfizer for alleged misuse of market power in attempting to extend patent protection beyond the patent expiry period for its Lipitor patent.

In a case regarding trade mark infringement, the Athens Civil Court of Appeals affirmed in its recent judgment no 457/2013 that the defendant's claim on abuse of process should be rejected for being contrary to the principle of priority, which applies in trade mark matters, as well as to the principle that trade mark rights are of public interest.

USPTO guidance for determining subject matter eligibility in claims resulting from laws of nature in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Myriad decision has caused high concern. Some believe a court challenge is likely if the agency does not change its policy. Michael Loney and Alli Pyrah introduce the debate

Provisions on patent term extension vary greatly in different jurisdictions. Kathryn D Soulier and Noel E Day provide a guide to the maze of regulations, and advise on how to get maximum protection

Singapore has moved to a positive grant patent system with amendments to the Singapore Patents Act and Rules taking effect on February 14 2014. This will affect all Singapore patent applications lodged in Singapore on or after this date.

The Portuguese IP Code dated 1940 computed the term of a patent by counting 15 years from the grant date. Later, the IP Code of 1995 introduced the term of a patent as 20 years from the filing date. However, for those patents filed before 1995 and granted after, the term calculation was made by considering the greater protection that could be given. Since the grant process could take, in some cases, seven or eight years, the duration of a patent could be more than 20 years from the application date! Further, when SPC applications based on those patents were filed, the total protection could be 27 or 28 years or even more.

The US Supreme Court recently heard arguments on whether a computerised system for managing settlement risk constitutes patent-eligible subject matter, a question that had left an en banc Federal Circuit divided and without a majority opinion. While this case is similar in many respects to Bilski v Kappos, neither Bilski nor subsequent Supreme Court and Federal Circuit decisions have articulated a definitive test to determine whether computer-implemented inventions are eligible for patenting. Perhaps perceiving a need for such a test, the justices focused several questions on where and how a line should be drawn between patent-eligible and patent-ineligible subject matter.