Insights

This article updates our report of 11 July, “UAE One-Day Trademark Examination Raises the Bar for Filing Readiness”.

On 15 July 2026, the UAE Ministry of Economy updated its practical guidance on one-day trademark examination and multi-class filings. Applicants may opt for examination within one working day for an official fee of AED 2,250, compared with AED 750 for the standard examination route. The accelerated service may be useful where a product launch, transaction closing or online enforcement action depends on faster progress, but it does not relax the substantive test for registrability.

The update also confirms that applications filed in 2026 should be prepared under the 13th edition of the Nice Classification, with more specific wording expected for virtual goods, NFT-related digital content and certain AI software services. Broad terms such as “virtual goods” or “AI services” may still trigger objections if the function, downloadable nature or mode of delivery is unclear. Businesses considering one-day examination should therefore complete clearance, classification and specification review before paying the expedited fee. A multi-class filing can reduce filing steps, but a defect in one class may still disrupt the expected timetable for the application as a whole.

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 have described the measure as a new “right of attribution” for design creators, but its legal effect is narrower: it creates a practical recordal and maintenance mechanism rather than automatically establishing or expanding substantive attribution rights under the laws of designated Contracting Parties. For businesses, the change makes accurate creator records more useful—and more important. Design teams should therefore align inventor-style documentation, employment ownership records and authorisations before filing, especially because a change of name cannot be used to replace one creator with another.

On 6 July 2026, the Casablanca Commercial Court issued two rulings barring Tecno Mobile and Itel Mobility, subsidiaries of Transsion Holdings, from selling smartphones in Morocco that were found to infringe Ericsson’s 4G and 5G cellular standard-essential patents. The decisions are being described as Africa’s first SEP injunctions, reached roughly six months after Ericsson filed suit in December 2025.

The immediate commercial effect was overtaken by a subsequent settlement: on 8 July, Ericsson and Transsion announced a multi-year global patent cross-licence and agreed to withdraw their pending proceedings worldwide. Even so, the Moroccan rulings matter. They show that an African court can move quickly in a technically complex SEP dispute and grant market-facing relief. Smartphone makers should therefore treat Morocco as part of their global licensing and litigation risk map, rather than assuming that decisive SEP enforcement will remain concentrated in Europe, Asia or Latin America.

At its 3 July mid-year review meeting, the Vietnam IP Office reported 89,816 industrial property applications received in the first half of 2026, up 20.7% year on year. It processed 115,819 matters, an increase of 15%, and issued 39,981 protection certificates, while the online filing rate remained close to 80%. Processing growth despite the sharp rise in incoming work suggests that recent operational changes are beginning to improve output rather than merely shift work between stages.

The more consequential reform may be administrative: the number of approval procedures was cut from 57 to 31, with average handling time reduced by about 55%. Priorities for the second half include implementing Politburo Conclusion No. 51, responding to the US Section 301 investigation, reducing backlogs, and building AI-supported search and examination databases. Applicants may benefit from fewer procedural steps, but the higher filing volume will continue to test examination capacity; strong prior searches, accurate classification and well-prepared submissions remain essential, and office-wide efficiency figures should not be read as a guarantee of faster treatment in every case.

IP Australia’s 2026 Australian Intellectual Property Report shows that trademark filings reached a record 97,345 in 2025, up 13.3%, while applications by Australian residents rose 15.1% to 55,913. Domestic standard complete patent filings also increased, from 2,578 to 2,810, a gain of 9.0%. Taken together, the patent, trademark and design data suggest that Australian businesses are making more deliberate use of IP to support branding, technology protection and product differentiation.

The growth was not evenly distributed across filing origins. Standard patent applications from the United States fell 5.0%, while those from China rose 13.4%, and cross-border co-applications declined. The pattern supports a broader reading of a more fragmented global innovation system, with applicants becoming more selective about where and how they protect assets. Companies entering Australia should therefore avoid treating the country as a routine extension of a global filing programme and instead align patent, trademark and design timing with market entry, supply-chain exposure and product life cycles.

A 14 July analysis by Lewis Silkin offers one of the clearest practical summaries to date of the Unified Patent Court’s fee framework. The basic rule is that the unsuccessful party bears the other side’s reasonable and proportionate costs, although the Court may adjust the allocation on fairness grounds. Fixed court fees are €14,600 for infringement actions, €26,500 for revocation actions and €300 for protective letters, with additional value-based fees once the amount in dispute exceeds €500,000. Even where several patentees or defendants are involved, the fixed fee is generally charged only once, while the fee for a counterclaim for revocation is capped at €26,500.

The practical significance lies in case planning rather than fee recovery alone. In Edwards v Meril, the UPC confirmed that it will not award interest on recoverable costs, so parties cannot assume that the financing burden of long-running proceedings will be shifted to the opponent. Businesses should therefore model fixed fees, value-based fees, recoverability caps and the Court’s discretion together when deciding whether to bring an infringement action, file a revocation counterclaim or lodge a protective letter. A multi-party structure may not multiply the fixed fee, but it can still materially increase legal, expert and evidence-management costs.