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In Germany, inventions which are created by employees during the term of their employment, so-called service inventions, are subject to the Act on Employees' Inventions (ArbnErfG). According to the act, all rights in the invention are assigned to the employer if the employer does not release the invention to the employee.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, IP practitioners in Greece welcomed the new law on trademarks, under which Directive (EU) 2015/2436 was transposed into national law. There was no reason for any caution in this respect, since the implementation had been awaited since January 12 2019, which was the deadline for Greece to transpose the directive.

Coronil, an ayurvedic drug (formulation of herbs and minerals) developed by Patanjali Ayurved that was initially promoted as a cure for the COVID-19 virus and later approved to be sold as an immunity booster to fight Coronavirus, has run into a controversy. A Chennai-based company Arudra Engineering (Arudra) filed a suit before the Madras High Court, alleging trademark infringement. Arudra sought an injunction restraining Patanjali Ayurved (Patanjali) and Divya Yog Mandir Trust, subsequently impleaded as a defendant, from using the mark "Coronil" or any deceptive variation.

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.

On July 1 2020, and as a result of the entry into force of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the new Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property was published, abrogating the current Industrial Property Law. It will come into force on November 5 2020.

The Myanmar Customs Department (MCD) organised another Intellectual Property Awareness and Product Identification Workshop at its Customs Training School in Yangon on August 6 2020, for its frontline customs officers. Such workshops are held several times every year, serving as a platform for foreign brand owners and their local representatives to educate and update the enforcement officers on methods for differentiating their genuine products from counterfeits and imitations when inspecting suspicious shipments at ports of entry into the country. The training sessions are also useful in encouraging collaborative discourse between the private and public sectors to improve the efficiency of their joint intellectual property rights enforcement efforts.

COVID-19 has changed the way we live, communicate and do business. In this time of drastic change and upheaval, innovative entrepreneurs and businesses across the world have used this opportunity to redefine ordinary business practices and bring new products and services to the market. New Zealand is no exception.

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.

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.

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.