Region: Asia-Pacific

The Delhi High Court has granted Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) a temporary injunction restraining Sun Generics from manufacturing and marketing pharmaceutical products bearing the trademark OMZ 20. DRL argued that the mark is confusingly similar to its 11-year-old OMEZ mark.

03 December 2002

The PRC Trademark Law was last amended in October 2001. One year later,long-awaited implementing regulations have come into force, bringingthe Trademark Law into line with TRIPs.

02 December 2002

A new Trademarks Ordinance will modernize Hong Kong's trademark law in accordance with the latest international trends. The ordinance will offer enhanced protection to trademark owners and is expected to come into force in January 2003.

26 November 2002

The Shaolin Temple in Henan Province has set up a company to try and protect its SHAOLIN TEMPLE trademark in China as well as abroad. Many of the disputes are with former monks of the temple who have been using the trademark to market their on-the-road kung fu shows.

22 November 2002

Despite the Trademarks Act's single test for registration of words, logos, colours and shapes as trademarks, the decisions made in relation to 3M's canary yellow and Cadbury's purple applications reflect the Trademarks Office's practice of treating colours and shapes as special cases. However, with the Kenman decision refuting this practice, appeals by 3M and Cadbury are eagerly awaited.

21 November 2002

auDA's New Names Advisory Panel has issued an interim report recommending the creation of eight new second-level domains related to the eight Australian states and territories.

20 November 2002

In a case involving Japanese yogurt manufacturer Yakult Honsha andChinese manufacturer Yakudo Group, Hong Kong's High Court has issued a temporary injunction preventing Yakudo from producing or marketing lactic drinks in Hong Kong using YANG-LE-DUO, the Chinese equivalent of the trademark YAKULT.

19 November 2002

China has implemented new legislation in relation to country-code top-level domain names, including the China Internet Network Information Centre Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy and Rules. Unlike previous legislation, these apply to both Latin script and Chinese character domain names in the '.cn' domain space.

18 November 2002

The New Zealand Court of Appeal has found that the use of the word 'Budweiser' on bottle labels produced by Czech beer company Budweiser Budvar infringes the trademark rights of the US brewer of Budweiser, even though the claims of passing off and confusion were rejected.

14 November 2002

In an attempt to combat rampant cybersquatting, Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication has announced that it will revise the legislation relating to domain names, making cybersquatting a crime. The new law will also give the Korea Network Information Centre a greater role in managing the domain name system.

13 November 2002