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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.

The customs initiated an administrative court case at the Commercial Court of St Petersburg against Foreign Brands, a Russian company that imported goods labelled with a trademark "Dr Pepper Est. 1885." This is a routine procedure for customs authorities when they suspect transportation of counterfeit goods through the border. The owner of the trademark in such cases is a third person with limited participation in the proceedings

The newly-born Greek law on trademarks implementing Directive (EU) 2015/2436 has an attention-worthy provision, relating to the renewal of trademarks within their grace period. More specifically, the new Greek law on trademarks provides that the payment of the renewal fee can be made within the last six months of the protection’s term. It can also be made within an additional term of six months following the expiry of the formal protection’s term, subject to the payment of the renewal fee increased by 50% and without negating third parties’ rights acquired in the meantime.

Artificial intelligence (AI), which does not yet have a solid definition, can generally be described as “the ability of a digital computer or computer controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings.” AI systems have started to play a part in our daily life and today they carry out crucial roles for human beings. For instance, BlueDot’s AI system was among the first in the world to identify the emerging risk from COVID-19.

With many blocks on .xxx domain names expiring next year, brand owners should consider using new tools to prevent their trademarks being available to third parties

On January 15 2020, US President Donald Trump and Chinese vice-premier He Liu signed a trade agreement which President Trump has described as "the biggest deal anybody has ever seen." The deal promises to be the first phase of a larger new trade agreement between the US and China, announcing a significant de-escalation in the trade war between the two giants that has dragged along for more than one year. Of particular interest to those in the pharmaceutical industry will be Sections C and D of the first chapter of the trade agreement, which outline China's commitments to improve protection and enforcement of pharmaceutical-related patent rights, and in particular to creating an effective mechanism for early resolution of patent disputes between generic drug companies and pharmaceutical innovators, or a Chinese drug patent linkage system, as many may like to put it.