Insights

A report published by the Malaysian outlet BusinessToday on 1 October 2026 indicates that the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) is working towards amendments involving 7 key intellectual property Acts, so that the country's framework keeps pace with changes in technology and business; no formal amendment text or bill has been seen so far, which makes this a policy signal and not a new rule already in force. The direction had been prepared earlier. On 2 December 2025, MyIPO Director General Yusnieza Syarmila Yusoff said that 7 Acts were to be amended from 2026, with the aim of aligning protection standards, strengthening enforcement and improving intellectual property mechanisms, in line with international standards and trade agreements.

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) announced on 1 October that, in order to better serve economic and trade exchanges between China and Spain and to help resolve the intellectual property problems and concerns that companies of each country encounter in the other, it has agreed with the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) to launch jointly a pilot project for a China-Spain focal point mechanism. The pilot runs for 1 year, from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2027. Under the arrangement, each office designates one intellectual property focal point, who provides consulting services on the intellectual property issues that arise when Chinese companies do business in Spain and Spanish companies do business in China, and supports companies of both countries in obtaining effective protection.

Most refused trademark applications in China could have been predicted. A clearance search before filing tells you whether an earlier mark is likely to block yours, but it has blind spots that foreign applicants often do not know about. This guide explains what a search in China covers, what it misses, and what to do with the result.

The European Patent Office (EPO) used the September 2026 issue of its Official Journal, published on 30 September, to announce a set of procedural and digital changes: a revised PACE programme for accelerated prosecution, a timeline panel in MyEPO and version 4 of the DOCX definition all apply from 1 October 2026, while mandatory electronic filing and electronic notification in the grant procedure will enter into force on 1 April 2027. PACE is confined to the examination phase. A request for a single application must be filed through MyEPO or online using EPO Form 1005, bulk requests must use the dedicated MyEPO feature, and requests made by other means, including on paper, are not processed.

Vidal Llerenas, Director General of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI), disclosed in a radio interview on 30 September that IMPI has signed a co-operation arrangement with Alibaba to take down listings of illegal goods, and said the measure will be extended to e-commerce platforms such as Mercado Libre, Amazon and Coppel in order to speed up the detection and removal of counterfeit products online. According to media reports of the same day, the signatory is AliExpress, the Alibaba group's cross-border platform, and the document is a memorandum of understanding: the parties exchange information to bring about the swift removal of listings that allegedly infringe the intellectual property rights of Mexican companies, the platform applies seller sanctions and buyer protection measures in co-ordination with IMPI, and they will explore joint action against repeat sellers of counterfeits.

Peru's National Institute for the Defence of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) reported on 29 September that its Specialised Chamber for Intellectual Property has confirmed on appeal the first-instance refusal to register copyright in 3 AI-generated images filed by the same applicant, titled 'Viejo Callejón de un solo caño', 'Café del Lunes' and 'Lomo Saltado en Taberna'. The Chamber stated that copyright protects personal and original intellectual creations, so a protected work must result from human creative activity, and that results generated exclusively by automated systems, algorithms or artificial intelligence cannot be regarded as protectable works under copyright law.