IP Australia’s latest Australian IP Report 2026 records a sharp rise in filing activity during 2025: trade mark applications reached 97,345, up 13.3%, while design applications increased to 10,296, up 7.1%. Both categories set new records. Standard patent applications, by contrast, eased by 0.5% to 30,348, suggesting that technology filings have moved into a more selective phase rather than following the same expansion seen in brands and product appearance.The report’s research on firm performance gives the figures a practical edge. Businesses tend to show sustained gains in productivity,...

China’s National Intellectual Property Administration, together with the Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration for Market Regulation, has rolled out an action plan to make 2026 a nationwide “Year of Rectification and Standardization” for the intellectual property agency industry. The plan goes beyond another short enforcement push: it targets bad-faith patent and trademark filings, unlicensed practice, certificate lending, falsified materials, improper client solicitation, and weak gatekeeping at the approval and recordal stages, while also tying in credit-based and...

Bahrain’s Intellectual Property Office has reported that its IP portal, previously disrupted by a technical failure, is now fully restored. The authority has also clarified that late filings caused by the service interruption will not attract late fees and should not prejudice core deadlines such as priority claims; affected users should now complete any pending steps through the online system as soon as possible.The practical message is reassuring but not a reason to slow down. The temporary allowance to submit certified legal documents, including powers of attorney, within three months...

By mid-July 2026, two significant intellectual property reforms in East Africa had moved into sharper focus. Tanzania’s Written Laws (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, 2026 remains under legislative consideration and proposes coordinated changes to the Trade and Service Marks Act and the Patents (Registration) Act. The draft would recognise ARIPO trade marks designating Tanzania, strengthen protection for well-known, collective and certification marks, extend the patent term from ten years to twenty years from filing, and reinforce the utility model framework. If adopted in its current...

The AfCFTA IP Protocol was adopted in 2023, but the point at which many IP teams started treating it as an operational development rather than a distant policy project came in February 2026, when eight annexes were adopted together. That shifted the discussion from whether Africa might one day harmonise IP rules to how trade marks, patents, geographical indications and plant variety protection may begin to converge in ways that affect filing, enforcement and portfolio design.Market attention is now fixed on most-favoured-nation treatment and national treatment. Both could reduce friction in...

The 7th All Africa Intellectual Property Summit has been confirmed for 11-13 November 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya, under the theme “Mainstreaming Intellectual Property for Africa’s Trade, Industrial and Creative Economy Transformation.” The phrasing matters. It does not treat intellectual property as a narrow question of registration or enforcement. It places IP back inside trade strategy, industrial policy and the business logic of creative sectors.For companies watching Africa from the angles of brand building, licensing, content distribution, manufacturing partnerships or technology...

The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) reports a broad rise in demand for IP protection in 2025. Patent applications reached 62,050, up 4.7%; trade mark applications climbed to 96,328, an increase of 19.8%; and utility model filings rose 19.3% to 11,427. Growth in patents was supported by digital technologies, electric mobility and battery innovation, while the sharp increase in trade marks was linked in part to Chinese applicants and online-platform activity. Applications from China reached 10,027, up 196.2% year on year.The figures point to more than a cyclical rebound. Germany...

WIPO has notified that Qatar deposited its instrument of accession to the Nice Agreement on November 10, 2025, and that the Agreement entered into force for Qatar on February 10, 2026. For brand owners and filing teams, this is more than a treaty-status update. It means the classification logic surrounding trade mark applications and registration records in Qatar now sits more clearly inside the internationally used Nice Classification framework.The practical significance is not limited to class numbers appearing on official documents. The bigger shift is that specification drafting,...

The UK conversation around bad-faith stockpiling and “zombie” marks is not just a passing enforcement headline. The verifiable public materials point to a broader tightening. After SkyKick, UKIPO told examiners to look actively at specifications that are manifestly and self-evidently broad, and from 1 April 2026 the forms and fees for revocation and invalidation have also been updated. The practical message is that the UK system is becoming less tolerant of filings built to occupy space first and justify business use later.Across the Atlantic, the PTAB story should also be framed...

South Korea officially launched its pan-government one-stop reporting platform for overseas infringement on April 27, creating a single channel for Korean brands facing malicious trademark filings, counterfeits and online infringement in foreign markets. By bringing together customs, police and diplomatic resources, the platform is designed to shorten the distance between a complaint and an actual enforcement response.That is more than an administrative update. For many K-Brands expanding abroad, the harder part has never been identifying the problem but moving quickly across borders once...

Jordan’s Cabinet has advanced amendments to the Investment Environment Regulation, with a clear focus on reducing procedural friction for foreign investors entering the market. The changes are expected to simplify business registration and improve the way related checks, including trade names and trademarks, are handled before or during registration. For companies planning a Jordanian entity or brand launch, the practical point is straightforward: name clearance and trademark registrability may need to be assessed earlier in the investment process.A separate but connected filing update is...

IPONZ and New Zealand’s Ministry of Business have now pushed trade mark infringement and digital platform governance into the same practical frame, and that matters for more than headline value. The key shift is not simply that platforms are mentioned more explicitly. It is that rights verification is being moved earlier in the enforcement chain. The new rapid protection mechanism for domestic and cross-border e-commerce platforms is designed to help platforms identify the rights basis faster, reduce hesitation after a complaint arrives, and move obviously high-risk listings, stores or...

IP Australia has signalled a more deliberate effort to make trade mark opposition practice less expensive and less drawn out, with one of the most notable developments being a trial of Early Neutral Evaluation (ENE) before parties are pulled deep into the full evidence cycle. On the model now being discussed, a trade mark applicant and an opponent may choose to place their preliminary materials before an IP Australia decision-maker and receive a non-binding view on the relative strength of the case, the real points in dispute, and whether settlement or withdrawal makes more commercial sense...

China’s Trademark Office has announced the second phase of its integrated electronic evidence service platform for trademark review, opening a direct blockchain channel for case-related e-evidence. On paper, this looks like another system update. In practice, it reaches into one of the hardest parts of trademark review: how digital evidence enters the case file, how quickly it can be verified, and how convincingly it can be organized in two-party proceedings.Read together with China’s broader move toward full electronic trademark processing, the change matters more than the interface...

The Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) is preparing systems for the implementation of the Geographical Indications Protection Law and its executive framework, which are expected to take effect in mid-November 2026. The work is being linked to a broader cultural and handicraft protection strategy, encouraging makers in fields such as weaving, woodworking and leathercraft to review collective marks and industrial design protection before the GI registration system is fully operational.The practical message is to build a layered rights strategy rather than wait for a single new...

As of early July 2026, KIPI was still hosting the Draft Geographical Indications Bill, 2026 and its memorandum submission tools on its official channels, while the Ministry’s verifiable public notice was submitted on April 9, 2026. The real story is not that Kenya has coined another IP label. It is that Kenya is trying, for the first time, to move origin-linked quality and reputation into a dedicated statute instead of leaving the issue to sit awkwardly at the edge of trademark practice.That shift matters well beyond local agriculture. It affects how tea, coffee, craft, processed food and...

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,...

Nigerian officials say WIPO Director General Daren Tang will visit from June 1, 2026, with the Abuja office expected to be further positioned and publicly emphasized as WIPO’s first and only office in Sub-Saharan Africa and as a regional hub for the area. Running in parallel is a more operational story: Nigeria is continuing to digitise its trademark, patent and industrial design administration through WIPO’s Industrial Property Automation System (IPAS) and its own online filing environment, pushing a registry long associated with paper files and fragmented processing toward a more...

On 16 July, regional IP firm Al-Ajaleen published an update revisiting Qatar’s implementation of the GCC Trademark Law. The development should not be read as a new law taking effect this week: Qatar’s Ministerial Decision No. 56 and its implementing regulations were published in the Official Gazette on 9 July 2023 and entered into force on 10 August 2023. The framework shortened several examination, response and opposition periods, while revising official fees for registration, renewal and related procedures.For international brand owners, closer alignment across GCC jurisdictions can...

CNIPA’s Trademark Office issued a notice dated June 4, 2026, effective June 5, changing how certain documents are served in three-year non-use cancellation proceedings involving Madrid international registrations designating China. The notice covers the request to submit evidence of use or explain justified non-use, as well as decisions and closure notices issued after a holder fails to respond in time; instead of sending those documents directly to the holder by paper mail, CNIPA will have WIPO’s International Bureau forward them electronically.This is more than an administrative...