Insights

This article updates our report of 27 July, “Saudi Arabia to Join the Madrid System in October 2026”.

WIPO confirmed in Information Notice No. 35/2026 that Saudi Arabia deposited its instrument of accession to the Madrid Protocol on 8 July 2026. The Protocol will enter into force for the Kingdom on 8 October 2026, allowing trademark owners from other Madrid System members to designate Saudi Arabia in an international application or subsequent designation. Saudi Arabia becomes the fifth Gulf Cooperation Council state to join the system, with Kuwait remaining outside it. The Kingdom has opted for an 18-month time limit for provisional refusals, subject to the Madrid Protocol’s opposition-related exception, and will apply individual fees for designations and renewals.

The practical gain lies mainly in simplifying the filing route. Brand owners will generally no longer need to begin protection through a separate Saudi national application, which can reduce the early-stage burden of preparing legalized powers of attorney and appointing local counsel solely to file. SAIP will still examine each designation under Saudi law, and a local representative may remain necessary if a provisional refusal, opposition or other domestic procedure arises. Companies planning Middle East expansion should therefore review their basic marks, goods and services wording and filing budgets before 8 October rather than treating a Madrid designation as automatic registration.

A development reported on 30 July 2026 indicates that Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) and Customs Department have completed a new digital upgrade to the country’s customs IP recordation framework. The shift is aimed less at conventional container inspections and more at postal parcels and express-delivery channels, with partial logistics-data alerts reportedly linked to platforms such as Lazada and Shopee and AI-assisted screening used to flag suspected counterfeit goods and pirated merchandise.

The operational value of the upgrade will depend on the quality of rights-holder records, product-identification materials and the actual scope of platform data sharing. Brand owners and copyright holders selling into Thailand should therefore review their customs filings, authorisation chains and genuine-product indicators rather than concentrating only on large consignments. Fragmented, high-frequency e-commerce parcels are becoming a central border-enforcement problem, and effective recordation will increasingly determine whether automated risk screening produces usable leads.

According to information released on 31 July 2026, the Intellectual Property Office of Vietnam (IP Vietnam) published its first three representative cases in which trademark registrations were successfully invalidated on bad-faith grounds. The move appears to mark a more concrete stage in the application of Vietnam’s amended IP Law and also comes amid continuing US scrutiny of bad-faith trademark registrations in the country.

The practical importance lies less in the number of cases than in the evidentiary direction they provide. Foreign brand owners may now have a clearer basis for relying on an applicant’s prior dealings, knowledge of the mark, filing pattern and other surrounding conduct, rather than depending almost entirely on proof of local well-known status. That may lower the evidentiary burden in some opposition and invalidation actions, but it does not remove the need for a disciplined record: companies should still preserve commercial correspondence, evidence of earlier use, distribution records and facts showing how the applicant became aware of the mark.

Editor’s note (24 September 2026): as of publication we have not located an official announcement of the measures described below; this article is based on industry briefings and is subject to official confirmation.

Under joint guidelines issued on 28 July 2026, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) introduced a 72-hour notice-and-takedown standard for social media and e-commerce platforms handling deepfake infringement, voice cloning and AI-derived content based on protected works. The move places AIGC-related complaints more clearly within platform copyright governance and gives rights holders and intermediaries a more consistent timetable for notices, verification and removal.

The deadline is likely to push platforms to move copyright complaints out of ordinary customer-service queues and into auditable compliance workflows. Speed, however, should not replace evidentiary discipline: notices still need to identify the protected work, the location of the disputed content and the way AI was used to reproduce or transform it. Platforms should preserve records of review, removal and appeal, while watching for further detail on valid-notice requirements, platform scope and implementation.

On 31 July 2026, Korea's Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP, formerly KIPO) announced that it had deployed an AI model within its internal trademark examination system to identify suspected bad-faith filings and abnormal application patterns. The system cross-checks new applications against databases of globally recognised brands and high-demand product terms used in cross-border e-commerce, flagging lookalike marks, bulk stockpiling and filings that may lack a genuine intention to use.

Where an application is assessed as high risk, examiners may require the applicant at an early stage to submit evidence of genuine use intent. The practical significance lies in shifting part of the dispute from post-registration opposition or invalidation proceedings to front-end examination. Overseas brand owners may benefit from lower enforcement costs, but the new screening tool is no substitute for timely Korean filings, market monitoring and well-kept records of sales, promotion, licensing and e-commerce activity.

IP Australia implemented its second-half 2026 patent fee changes on 1 August, with a sharp increase in excess claim fees for applications carrying large claim sets, particularly once the number of claims exceeds 20. The change is likely to alter how PCT applicants approach Australian national phase entry: retaining broad, heavily layered claim sets without early consolidation may now create a noticeably higher cost at the outset.

At the same time, the new Green and Low-Carbon Technology Patent Fast Track offers a different incentive. Eligible inventions in areas such as clean energy, carbon capture and environmental protection may receive accelerated examination without an official fast-track fee, with a first examination report potentially issued in about three months. Read together, the measures point to a more selective allocation of examination resources. Applicants should review claim volume, amendment timing and divisional strategy before national phase entry, while green technology applicants should assess eligibility early enough to capture the procedural advantage.