A comprehensive legal environment is necessary to deter and address the theft of intellectual property, especially vulnerable IP assets like trade secrets. Vietnam’s compliance with the CPTPP’s trade secret requirements is necessary to ensure a healthy business environment as the country continues its path of economic integration.

Sensitive to the difficulties many business entities and individuals are experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Thai Customs Department recently implemented an important measure providing importers and exporters with the opportunity to temporarily stay pending customs duty obligations. This measure, which addresses procedures and conditions for requests to stay outstanding duty payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, was included in Announcement of Customs Department No. 103/2564, dated July 1, 2021, issued under sections 37 and 38 of the Customs Act B.E. 2560 (2017). Background Under the Customs Act, importers and exporters have the right to petition the Customs Department for a stay of duty payments at various stages of the customs consideration process. For example, this right extends both to petitioners who are in the process of appealing a customs duty assessment, and to those who have filed claims in the Thai courts challenging a Customs Board of Appeals decision. On December 29, 2017, Main Announcement of the Customs Act on Principal, Methods and Conditions for Requesting a Stay of Outstanding Duty Payments No. 189/2560 was issued, stipulating that a party who appealed to the Customs Board of Appeals regarding customs duty assessment (or submitted a further complaint with the Thai courts challenging the board’s decision) can request a stay of payment of outstanding duties within thirty days from the date of filing an appeal regarding customs duty assessment. In mid-2020, the Customs Department responded to the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic by issuing relief measures—first a short-term easing of certain documentation requirements, followed by a longer-lasting (until September 30, 2021) extension of the deadline for requesting review of import duty penalties, fines, and surcharges on outstanding import duty amounts. Relief for Payment of Customs Duty With the pandemic still being acutely felt in Thailand in 2021, the Customs Department

The Thai Civil Court has ruled that the controversial Regulation 29, which allowed the cessation of internet service to those disseminating content that “may instigate fear among the people,” violated the right to freedom of speech in the Thai Constitution.

Introduction Currently, under Vietnam’s Law on Intellectual Property of 2005, as amended in 2009 and 2019 (“IP Law”), secret prior art cannot be used in evaluating patent applications. However, an approach to evaluate secret prior art has been included, for the first time, in the draft amendment of the IP Law. Below is our discussion of this interesting topic. Recognition in Other Jurisdictions Secret prior art is the name given to prior art that, at the time of filing of a new patent application, was not discoverable by the new applicant or not publicly available. It exists as a filed but unpublished application, unavailable to the public until publication. Until that point, only the applicants and the patent examiners of the unpublished application know of its existence. Even though it is not discoverable or available to the public, secret prior art can still be used as a bar for novelty in many jurisdictions. Secret prior art is not limited to situations in which the first applicant and the new applicant are different people; secret prior art applies regardless. There is, however, a domestic limitation: Applications filed and not yet published in a foreign country are not considered to be secret prior art. When the applicants are different people, the new applicant has no way of discovering the secret prior art that exists as a filed and unpublished application of the first applicant. Regardless of the completeness of the patent search, the previously filed and unpublished application cannot be discovered. At the time of filing, the new applicant’s invention would seem novel. Later, it would be discovered that the application was actually filed after another application for the same invention, barring patentability. This creates confusion and unfairness among multiple applicants. One applicant can also file two separate applications at different