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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

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.

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

It is not uncommon to hear that design protection is often underestimated or even forgotten compared to other forms of IP, like trademarks, patents, and copyright. In Brazil, that seems to be the case when you compare the average of 6,000+ design applications filed annually, with the 245,000+ trademarks and 28,000+ patents filings.

Despite the widespread social, health, and economic devastation caused by COVID-19, it has largely been business as usual at the Indonesian IP Office (DGIP) since the start of the pandemic. While there certainly have been some minor disruptions and corresponding adjustments, overall the impact so far appears to have been minimal.

In early 2019, IP Australia initiated a comprehensive research phase exploring Australia’s design ecosystem, including voices from the industry, design forums, economic analysis and business surveys. Following this 12-month exercise, the regulator has proposed the following changes:

Recently, the Korean Patent Court rendered a favourable decision on the patentability of medical use inventions in which strict scrutiny was employed for two aspects of the enablement and inventiveness requirements.

Kwan Loh and Jamie-Lynn Kraft of Smart & Biggar review the changes made to Canadian trademark law and offer tips on how to navigate the road ahead

In the present case, the German Federal Court of Justice again had to deal with the question of how a representation of information within the meaning of Article 52(2)(d) EPC is to be distinguished from a technical feature.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO (EBA) has recently issued opinion G 3/19, which concludes that plants and animals exclusively obtained by “essentially biological processes” are exempt from patentability. This finding only affects patents derived from patent applications filed after July 1 2017.

In an important development, Mozambique has joined the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation’s (ARIPO) registration system for trademarks. It has been a member of the system for patents for some time.

Brazil is one of the newest members of the Madrid Protocol. It has been part of the protocol since October 2 2019. An international system was long overdue and less than 10 months in it has received 5,500+ BR designations, covering 13,300+ classes.