Three intellectual property (IP) practitioners from Tilleke & Gibbins in Vietnam— Loc Xuan Le, principal; Linh Duy Mai, attorney-at-law; and Diep Thi Bich Le, attorney-at-law—have contributed their expertise to author the Vietnam chapter of World Trademark Review’s Anti-counterfeiting: A Global Guide 2019 . This in-depth publication gives trademark and brand protection professionals a local perspective on anti-counterfeiting laws, procedures, and strategies in 22 jurisdictions worldwide.

World Trademark Review  (WTR) recently published the 2019 version of their annual, global anti-counterfeiting guide, a publication that takes an in-depth look at anti-counterfeiting laws, procedures, and strategies in important jurisdictions from around the world. The latest guide is comprised of 22 country-specific chapters, each of which covers a number of pre-determined anti-counterfeiting topics including, among others, legal framework, border measures, criminal prosecution, civil enforcement, and preventative measures.

On April 29, 2019, the Bank of Thailand issued Notification 4/2562 Re: The Determination of Rules, Procedures, and Conditions for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending Businesses and Platforms. The notification took effect the following day. 

The Indonesian government has issued Government Regulation No. 28 of 2019 specifying increases to the official fees for intellectual property filings, effective May 3, 2019.The increases in official fees mostly concern patent prosecution. While the fee for filing a patent application remains unchanged, fees have increased for other patent prosecution tasks, such as for filing a request for substantive examination, filing a request for change of data in a patent application, filing a recordal of patent assignment, patent annuities, and others.

Myanmar has finally enacted its long-awaited Trademark Law and Industrial Design Law on January 30, 2019, and its Patent Law was also signed into law on March 11, 2019. The Copyright Bill is expected to be enacted into law soon. A summary of the provisions of the new Trademark Law, Industrial Designs Law and Patent Law is provided below:Trademark Law

On April 29, 2019, Managing Intellectual Property (MIP) published an article diving into expected changes to the intellectual property (IP) landscape in Myanmar in light of its recently-enacted Trademark Law.

During the early months of 2019, the Vietnam IP field enjoyed a rare burst of public attention. First there was the wide reaction to the IP changes ushered in by CPTPP, which took effect on 14 January 2019. Then the spotlight moved to two high-profile copyright lawsuits related to derivative works, when the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 returned a verdict in a 12-year-old case on 18 February 2019, and the People’s Court of Hanoi issued its decision on a similar case on 20 March 2019.

The draft Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) was approved by the National Legislative Assembly in February 2019, raising concern among business entities over the the need for increased diligence to ensure adherence to the provisions. Running a business often entails handling the personal data of employees, contractors, suppliers, customers, and others. Any personal data collected could be subject to the provisions of the PDPA, and as employee data falls under the PDPA, all businesses, should be prepare to deal with the impact of the PDPA.