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Pankaj Soni of Remfry & Sagar analyses trends in AI, data concerns arising from AI, global subject matter eligibility standards for AI and whether AI can be classed as an inventor

Mengmeng Yu and Xia Zheng of AFD China evaluate the approach of the TMO, TRAB, CNIPA and courts to malicious trademark registrations

Each year more Brazilians engage with e-commerce, and Brazil has taken the position of 4th largest internet market globally, representing 42% of all B2C e-commerce in Latin America.

On August 10, 2018 several modifications to the Mexican Industrial Property Law entered into force, resulting in some new IP figures being recognised in Mexico.

Korea requires a number of drawings for design applications showing several views that usually comprise one perspective view and six principal views (e.g. front, rear, right, left, top and bottom view, etc.) such that the design for protection can be clearly identified.

In the latest international briefing for Mexico, Adrián Martínez assesses a new amendment to Mexican trade mark law dealing with bad faith marks

Claims of seniority of national trade marks for European marks have the effect of allowing owners, if they cease to maintain local trade marks, to continue benefitting from the same rights they would have had if their national trade mark had been maintained.

To raise funds for research and development, start-ups sometimes have to announce the existence of licensing agreements, supply and distribution agreements etc. (i.e. a contract for a future sale of a product embodying an invention). In places like the US, if such agreements were made public more than one year prior to the effective filing date, even though the details of the invention are kept confidential, a statutory on-sale bar may be triggered, resulting in loss of patent protection for the invention in the US.

The Decree on Amendments to Trademark Law in force as of August 10 2018 introduced new legal concepts to the IP Law to update and reinforce the intellectual property system in Mexico.

A hotel in a skiing area known for its bar featuring scantily-clad dancing girls was found to have an infringing trade mark. The lower courts issued an injunction in a first partial judgment. A further partial judgment was made requesting accounts of the turnover earned in connection with the running of the bar and all advertisements made for it. Accounts are the basis for all claims of compensation and damages calculations. In this case, the question was which turnovers should be included. On further appeal to the Austrian Supreme Court, the Court upheld the lower courts' judgments. It ruled on this topic as follows.

Until 2017, it was clear from several decisions of the Austrian Supreme Court that trade marks registered in bad faith were invalid and therefore could be successfully attacked any time and that asserted rights based on them would be rejected as immoral. However, the decisions went further: the mere use of that sign was held to be inadmissible and therefore could be forbidden as such without any other reason.

In Brazil, the courts, rather than the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO), have the final say about the registration or cancellation of a patent, design or trade mark.