Are importers and distributors responsible for patent infringement related to the products they import and distribute? This seemingly simple question has still only been partially answered in Vietnam, when the Superior People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City rendered a judgment on 28 July 2020 sending a case back to the first-instance court for a retrial.

In today’s fast-moving and highly competitive commercial environment, brand owners must ensure that their advertisements, while fulfilling their roles of promoting brands and increasing public recognition of products and services, do not violate any relevant laws or regulations. While this might seem straightforward and simple, advertising today can be a challenging task, and with advertisements instantly transmitted countrywide, failure to operate within the law can have consequences on a huge scale.

While we’ve all seen how quickly life has changed during the pandemic, from a business and HR angle the possibility of intellectual property misappropriation and theft occasioned by work-from-home policies may not yet be clear to many. With many employees 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.