In Thailand, patents applications can often remain pending for quite a long time, and this is causing great concern to both Thai and foreign patent applicants. The average time required to obtain a patent in Thailand, from application to grant, is seven-and-a-half years. For pharmaceutical patent applications, the process from requesting substantive examination to granting can take anywhere from 4 to 13 years.

Vietnam has one of the world’s top growth rates in pharmaceutical spending, with Thanh Nien newspaper estimating that spending for 2013 would exceed USD 3.3 billion, an increase of 17% from 2012. Vietnamese consumers have additionally demonstrated that they are willing to pay more for the reliability of a foreign brand. However, connecting foreign supply to domestic demand continues to pose challenges, despite restrictions being relaxed in recent years.

Patents are engines of growth and are critical to the vitality of the pharmaceutical industry. They create the incentive for pharmaceutical companies to maintain their investments to find new and better cures for global health issues, and to improve the health of people around the world. From an economic perspective, patents also give their holders an upper hand over other competitors. For this reason, many generic pharmaceutical companies try to illegally use others’ patented inventions in their own products, in order to gain an unfair advantage and compete with the patentees’ drugs.

The key legislation governing intellectual property issues in Laos is the Law on Intellectual Property (Law No. 01/NA of December 20, 2011, as amended), which covers industrial property, new plant varieties, copyright, and related rights. Although this law is now entering its third year of implementation, the country’s IP officers remain relatively inexperienced, especially with regard to handling IP infringement cases and verifying whether products are genuine or counterfeit.

The Internet country code top-level domain for Indonesia, “.id” (also known as “anything.id”), has been officially launched by Indonesian Internet Domain Name Management (PANDI), the Indonesian-based nonprofit organization that manages the country’s Internet domain. The launch, which took place on January 15, 2014, was in response to growing demand for a top-level domain name in Indonesia. This move is in line with the government’s policy to facilitate and promote economic growth in the country.

In Young Sangyo Co Ltd v Department of Intellectual Property (November 25, 2013), the Supreme Court has overturned a decision of the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court (IP&IT Court) in which the latter had found the figurative trademark BEVERLY HILLS POLO CLUB was confusingly similar to the earlier figurative trademark SANTA BARBARA POLO & RACQUET CLUB.

As various countries introduce restrictions on trademark rights with regard to certain products – most notably tobacco – there is growing concern about whether such national rules may undermine trademark rights and how they apply internationally.

When a contract is breached, or a party does not perform its obligations, this does not instantly affect the validity of a contract. It will continue to be valid and binding unless it is rescinded.