Attorneys from Tilleke & Gibbins in Myanmar have contributed to the latest edition of Practical Law’s online Life Sciences Global Guide. The guide is a Q&A-style overview of the regulatory frameworks for the life sciences industry across multiple jurisdictions worldwide, and this year the Myanmar chapter includes two sections, one of which is “Pharmaceutical IP and Competition Law in Myanmar.” This section runs through the country’s legal and regulatory environment for patents and trademarks—particularly as they relate to pharmaceutical business in the jurisdiction. The section then turns to IP and competition law issues, with questions and answers focusing on how the country’s competition laws and regulations affect the pharmaceutical sector. Readers are also given information on how to properly comply with Myanmar law on competition, including when it comes to licensing of medicines and pharmaceutical technology. The full Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Myanmar guide can be accessed on the Practical Law website. Practical Law, produced by Thomson Reuters, is the world’s leading legal know-how resource for business lawyers, publishing a huge range of guides covering hundreds of jurisdictions and practice areas. Tilleke & Gibbins also supplied the “Medicinal Product Regulation and Product Liability in Myanmar,” which Practical Law published in its Life Sciences Global Guide  at the same time.

On May 26, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance issued Circular No. 45/2020/TT-BTC on the reduction of fees for registration of foreign QR codes as well as certain industrial property fees. Accordingly, the industrial property fees listed in Section A of the schedule promulgated with Circular No. 263/2016/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance will be temporarily reduced by 50% from May 26 until the end of 2020, returning to the old levels on January 1, 2021.Specifically, the following fees will be subject to the 50% reduction:

On August 28, 2020, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced that the “soft-opening period” to refile trademarks under the country’s new Trademark Act would begin on October 1, 2020. This period, which is open to holders of trademarks recorded under Myanmar’s old system and to trademark owners who can prove prior use of their trademarks in the country, is expected to run for six months, though no closing date was stipulated in the MOC announcement. The date of the eventual “grand opening” of the Intellectual Property Department (IPD) will be the filing date for all applications submitted during the soft-opening period. What are the changes? Filing procedure – Under the old system, brand owners (or their agents) had to manually file an original notarized declaration of ownership and legalized power of attorney with the Office of Registration of Deeds (ORD) under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, which would then proceed with recordation. Under the new system, online filing is now in place, the original hard copies are not required, and the authority is the IPD of the Ministry of Commerce. Priority rights – With the implementation of the Trademark Law 2019, Myanmar is changing from its former first-to-use system to a first-to-file one. In addition to the IPD, all concerned authorities, such as the police and the courts, will need to adjust to the new paradigm for defining the rights of trademark owners. Examination procedure – Under the old system as defined under the Registration Act, there was no actual examination of the registrability of a mark; rather, registration could be refused if the officer felt that the mark was likely to be morally or legally objectionable, or likely to hurt the religious sensibilities of any Myanmar citizens. This is changed under the new system, and all

October 31, 2020, marked the closing of the public comment period for Thailand’s proposed amendments to the Patent Act B.E. 2522 (1979). The Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) had published its latest draft of the amendments on September 30 for the month-long period of public feedback. The process of drafting amendments has been pending for several years, but it began to take a higher profile in February 2018 with the convening of public hearings on the proposed new legislation. After a series of committee meetings through November of that year, the cabinet approved a set of proposed amendments in January 2019. After further internal discussions, attention turned to the drafting of a companion law specifically for industrial designs, in preparation for Thailand’s accession to the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. A similar process of public hearings and committee meetings was followed, but in March 2020, the cabinet requested that industrial design legislation be combined with the Patent Act amendments into a single new Patent Act. Therefore, the draft Patent Act as it currently stands covers both patents and designs. Some of the major patent matters proposed for amendment are as follows: Genetic resources (GRs), genetic material, derivative works and traditional knowledge (TK). Inventions that use GRs or TK must disclose the source, access, and benefit-sharing plan in the patent application. Disclosure grace period. Disclosure of subject matter of an invention within the twelve months before the filing of a patent application is not deemed defeating if the disclosure stems from the subject matter being obtained unlawfully or is made by the inventor, the patent applicant, or others they have authorized to do so. Dual publication. Patent applications will be published twice—first within 18 months from the application’s filing date in Thailand, and again when the