The USPTO has formally finalized a rule that will make late corrective petitions in patent matters harder once the delay runs past one year. Published in the Federal Register on June 24, 2026 and effective August 13, 2026, the rule lowers the point at which the Office will require a fuller factual showing from two years to one. It reaches more than abandoned applications: delayed priority or benefit claims, unintentionally delayed maintenance fee payments, and missed time limits in Hague international design matters are all in scope.This is not just a procedural tweak for outlier cases. It...

Indonesia’s Ministry of Law and Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DGIP) deposited the country’s instrument of accession to the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement with WIPO on 14 July 2026. Subject to the usual entry-into-force timetable, applicants are expected to be able to designate Indonesia through the Hague System from the fourth quarter of this year, replacing much of the separate national filing work that has traditionally involved local formalities, document legalization and Indonesian-language preparation.The move materially broadens the practical value of the Hague...

EUIPO’s design reform now allows new forms of representation in direct EU design filings: OBJ and STL files may be used for dynamic three-dimensional representations, while MP4 may be used for animated representations, subject to the technical limits set by the Office. As of 18 July 2026, however, WIPO’s public Hague System notices, news pages and current administrative framework do not appear to contain a matching confirmation that eHague can already receive those formats for international applications designating the European Union.Applicants should therefore keep the EUIPO direct route...

Amendments to Rule 21 of the Regulations under the 1999 Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement took effect on 1 July 2026. Holders of international registrations may now use the mandatory new Form DM/10 to add a creator’s name and address to the International Register, or to record changes to those details. A request may cover one, some or all designs in a registration, and the recorded change will be published in the International Designs Bulletin. The fee is CHF 144 for one international registration, plus CHF 72 for each additional registration included in the same request.Industry reports...

EUIPO reported on 7 July that it received 104,263 EU trade mark applications between January and June 2026, up 8.4% year on year, while EU design applications totalled 61,951, down about 1%. Combined filings reached 166,214, the Office’s highest first-half total on record. The increase was driven by trade marks rather than designs, but the design figure remains strong enough to show that demand for unitary EU protection is holding up.The more practical change came with the design framework fully applicable from 1 July. EUIPO now accepts dynamic 3D representations in OBJ and STL formats and...

Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (DIP), together with the Federation of Thai Industries, held its first practical briefing on partial design protection around 9 July 2026 as part of the country’s domestic preparations for joining the Hague Agreement. The proposed framework would allow applicants to claim protection for a specific visible part of a product by combining solid and dotted lines, rather than having to rely on the novelty of the product’s overall appearance.If implemented as outlined, the change should make design filings more adaptable for smartphone interfaces,...

The 3 July IMPI update matters because it appears to move Mexican design enforcement closer to the filing stage for Hague designations, rather than leaving meaningful action until after final grant. Where an applicant opts for early publication and is prepared to post security, the practical message is that enforcement leverage may begin earlier, even while substantive examination is still unfolding.That is a bigger shift than it first sounds. For many brands, the real problem in Mexico has not been the absence of design rights, but the lag between registration procedure, marketplace...

Saudi Arabia has now moved from hosting the Riyadh Design Law Treaty to formally backing it at Cabinet level. That matters. The Treaty is designed to simplify and harmonize the formal requirements that govern industrial design registration, which means the real target is not diplomatic symbolism but filing friction: the formal steps that still make design protection slower, costlier and less predictable than many applicants expect.For businesses, this is not just a treaty story. Design portfolios are often delayed less by the design itself than by the mechanics around it: what...

South Africa’s patent reform has moved into a more concrete phase. In late June 2026, the CIPC’s 2026/27 Annual Performance Plan and related public briefings made it clearer that the move to substantive search and examination (SSE) is being handled as a real transition programme, not just a long-range policy idea. The important point is that the pieces are now being pushed together: examination capacity, patent law reform and design law reform are being advanced in parallel.That changes how applicants should read South Africa. For years, many businesses treated the country as a...

On November 11, 2025, the Maldives enacted the Trademark Act (Law 19/2025), which is scheduled to take effect on November 11, 2026. Compared with the country’s earlier reliance on cautionary notices to signal trademark claims, the new law introduces a structured framework for filing, examination, publication, opposition, registration, renewal and cancellation. In practical terms, this is a shift from informal notice-based protection toward procedural title-based protection.Although the headline is about trademark legislation, the implications are broader for companies watching packaging,...

On 18 June 2026, Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) announced a fresh upgrade to its electronic industrial design examination system to align more closely with the latest digital standards of the Hague System. For applicants dealing with graphical user interfaces, holographic projections and moving designs, the practical shift is clear: Brazil is now prepared to receive a fuller digital record of what the design actually is.The headline change is that mainstream 3D modelling files and video demonstration clips can now form part of the evidentiary basis for...

Brazil’s INPI is starting to make its industrial design acceleration policy more concrete. Under the latest arrangement, industrial design applications designating Brazil through the Hague System may file a free fast-track request online where the product design is clearly tied to environmental efficiency or accessibility-oriented assistive use. For qualifying cases, the target is a substantive review and decision within 30 days. For applicants already treating Brazil as a serious design market rather than a distant filing add-on, that is not a minor procedural perk. It can materially...

On 1 July 2026, EUIPO moves into phase two of the EU design reform. The practical headline for applicants is simple: a single design may be represented by one 3D object file or one animated object, rather than being forced back into a small set of static views. For product teams working with complex surfaces, digital interfaces, components or textured forms, that changes more than filing aesthetics. It changes how design intent is carried into the application itself.What it does not yet justify is the market shorthand that EUIPO and WIPO’s Hague system are now fully linked for frictionless...

Colombia’s SIC this week issued a national-stage practice guide for international industrial design registrations designating Colombia. The headline point is not merely administrative. The office has now aligned its handling with the Hague System’s deferred publication mechanism, allowing applicants to request up to 30 months of delay before the design is made public. For companies preparing a Latin American rollout, that creates something they rarely had before in the region: time to secure a filing position without immediately exposing the design to the market.That matters because design...

IP Australia’s latest final consultation summary on the exposure draft for design law implementation points in a clear direction: protection for partial designs is moving closer to reality in Australia. The Office has already said it intends to progress reform so that applicants can protect part of a physical product, as part of a broader effort to make the design system more accessible and less cumbersome. For brand owners and product design teams, this is not a cosmetic adjustment. It goes to the level at which design rights can be carved out, how product families can be protected, and...

The Japan Patent Office has now moved from broad design-policy signalling to something much more useful for applicants: supplementary explanation tied to its Design Examination Guidelines and a first set of practical case examples focused on partial designs and graphical user interfaces under Hague filings. For teams designating Japan, the message is fairly direct. How the claimed portion is isolated, how unclaimed matter is shown, how a GUI sequence is organized, and how much explanatory detail is built into the filing will all matter more than many applicants would like to admit.What...

Brazil’s INPI is continuing to streamline the handling path for international design filings that designate Brazil, with the interface between Hague System designations, local data intake and examination workflow becoming more efficient in practice. For applicants, the practical value is not just a shorter queue. It is a more predictable landing path in Brazil, especially when the filing strategy, titles and figure set are prepared carefully from the outset.The more interesting shift is in how GUI and dynamic icon filings are being expressed. What is clearer in the public guidance is that...

Mexico’s Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) has updated its practice guidance for industrial designs filed through the Hague System, with a useful clarification on the country’s 12-month novelty grace period. Applicants who disclosed a design before filing, for example at an international exhibition or product launch, should not assume that the grace period will be applied automatically. Where protection is sought in Mexico, supporting evidence must be submitted in the required form when filing the Hague international application or within the relevant period after the Mexican...

The Japan Patent Office has updated a Hague-related procedures page to make one practical point much clearer: in procedural documents relating to international design registrations, such as amendments and written opinions filed at the JPO stage, applicants should provide an ‘Application Number’ field and state the Japanese domestic application number. The page indicates an update date of 30 March 2026. On its face, this looks like a minor filing instruction. In practice, however, it affects how law firms, agents and in-house teams map fields, generate forms and align filing logic with the...

On 29 June, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) signalled a practical shift in how Germany-linked international registrations may be handled after post-registration changes. Where a Madrid or Hague registration designating Germany later undergoes a change of name, address or ownership, the German-side recordal and downstream handling are expected to move more quickly than many right holders have been used to. For companies managing international portfolios, the real frustration has often not been whether a change can be recorded at WIPO, but how long it takes before the German...