Under Thailand 4.0, renewable energy is a key priority for innovation. Cognizant that dependence on imported fossil fuels is not only economically and ecologically unsustainable, but also exposes the country to the unpredictability of global commodity markets, the Thai government embarked on a power development plan in May 2015 (PDP 2015).

The National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) of Vietnam will begin accepting Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) requests again on April 3, 2017.As reported last year, the NOIP signed a PPH agreement with the Japanese Patent Office to provide a new avenue for accelerated patent examination in Vietnam. The pilot program is scheduled to last for three years, from April 1, 2016, until March 31, 2019, and is limited to 100 PPH requests per year.

Getting the Deal Through – Arbitration 2017, published by Law Business Research, provides an in-depth insight into arbitration law in more than 50 jurisdictions worldwide. Kornkieat Chunhakasikarn, attorney-at-law, and John Frangos, consultant, in Tilleke & Gibbins’ dispute resolution group, coauthored the Thailand chapter of the guide, which covers the following topics:

For some years now, the Thai government has had a policy of promoting social enterprises to improve the quality of life of the Thai people and enable the private sector to work with the government to help communities and societies.Tax Exemption for Social EnterprisesIn order to help promote the activities of social enterprises, the Royal Decree on Tax Exemption (No. 621) B.E. 2559 was passed in 2016. To fall within the Royal Decree’s definition of a “social enterprise,” a company or juristic partnership must:

Since the beginning of this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been actively reforming its regulations in response to the changing landscape and development of the country’s capital market.

When deciding how much to invest in their intellectual property rights, product manufacturers often ask, “What is a patent worth?” This is a reasonable question, given the costs required to obtain patent protection. But manufacturers need to understand that unless a product with high value and risk of being imitated is patent-protected, the product owner could lose potential profits by not possessing exclusive rights to the product.

On January 12, 2017, the Ho Chi Minh City Court rendered a ruling in favor of a major Silicon Valley high-tech company, ending a lengthy dispute between the company and a Vietnamese entity over the latter’s unauthorized use and registration of a company name and a domain name which incorporated the U.S. company’s registered trademark. To the delight of the U.S. company, the court resolved the dispute in an expedient 55 days. The brand owner’s course of action provided a useful test of new regulations on domain name and company name disputes.

Tilleke & Gibbins’ Laos office is pleased to publish a new guide, Intellectual Property in Laos: Registration, Protection, Commercialization, for business operators who are new to the country. The publication provides a useful introduction to IP registration, commercialization, and management in Laos, and covers the following important topics: