Sponsored content

The Indonesian government has established a compulsory licence framework in anticipation of a COVID-19 vaccine. The framework also applies to national defence and security patents.

A Chinese company "Wedo Tools Co" trading in hand tools established dealership relations with a Russian company which became its exclusive distributor in Russia. The parties concluded a distributorship agreement after which the Russian company registered its company name as "Wedo Rus." The parties also concluded another agreement according to which the designation "Wedo" should be registered in Russia as a trademark in the name of the Chinese company.

On May 20 2020, the Korean Patent Act (KPA) was amended such that mixed damages of lost profits and a reasonable royalty for patent infringement may be claimed by a patentee and awarded by the court. The amendment will apply to damages filed for on or after December 10 2020.

Entering a foreign market for one's products is usually made through direct investment or by way of licensing, such as forging a distributorship agreement. Such an agreement will be the law for the parties. For agreements involving the Philippines, other than the provisions stated in it, other laws relevant to said agreement are deemed included and must be complied with. An example is Article 19 of the Civil Code on the abuse of rights. Article 19 sets certain standards which must be observed not only in the exercise of one's rights but also in the performance of one's duties, i.e. to act with justice; to give everyone his due; and to observe honesty and good faith.

With many employees in Thailand working outside their company's normal IT security fence, their increased use of their own computers and devices instead of those in their offices with standard or enhanced security mechanisms has made it more challenging for employers to control access to key business information. In the rush to set up a fully or partially remote workforce, most companies have had little time to establish work-from-home guidelines on protection of their valuable intangible assets like trade secrets and confidential business information. The need for sufficient internal guidelines on copying files to USB drives, emailing files to personal accounts, and uploading to cloud storage is already widely recognised, but who could have imagined the need for rules precluding sharing proprietary information over Zoom, Skype, Webex, and such programs?

An IP court has accepted the discovery of evidence demand made by an originator company against a generic pharmaceutical company after the court's expert panel confirmed that patent infringement had occurred, but has then rejected the originator's request for a preliminary injunction due to the so-called Bolar exemption.

Are importers and distributors responsible for patent infringement related to the products they import and distribute? This seemingly simple question has still only been partially answered in Vietnam, when the Superior People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City rendered a judgment on July 28 2020 sending a case back to the first-instance court for a retrial.

Quan Kang of Deqi details the examination standards for subject matter, inventiveness and sufficient disclosure in the arena of AI-related inventions and makes some suggestions for drafting claims and specifications

Hyun-Sil Lee and Minji Ryan Kim of FirstLaw analyse changes to South Korean IP legislation and examine KIPO’s plan to introduce K-discovery

Shimpei Kuroda of Shiga analyses data on applications for AI inventions, examining AI’s use in fields as various as traffic control and medical diagnosis

In the third article from an exclusive series on the automotive industry, Cyril Abrol and Dhruv Goel of Remfry & Sagar discuss data privacy in India

The e-commerce market in China is one of the fastest growing in the world. To improve regulation over the flourishing market and maintain the market order, China promulgated the E-Commerce Law which became effective on January 1 2019. Notably, the E-Commerce Law addresses intellectual property protection in e-commerce settings. To reflect further developments regarding e-commerce in China, and to implement intellectual property protection more efficiently, on June 10 2020, the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC) released Draft Guiding Opinion on the Adjudication of Intellectual Property Disputes Involving E-commerce Platforms 《关于审理涉电子商务平台知识产权纠纷案件的指导意见》 (Guiding Opinion) for public consultation.