Insights

Moldova became the 40th member state of the European Patent Organisation on 1 June 2026. European patent applications filed on or after that date now automatically designate Moldova as an EPC contracting state, removing the separate validation fee previously used under the validation system. The same filing-date test applies to PCT cases: an international application filed on or after 1 June 2026 can cover Moldova through the European phase.

The transition still requires careful docketing. European and international applications filed before 1 June, as well as divisional applications derived from them, remain subject to the former validation route. National post-grant requirements in Moldova, including any applicable translation and renewal formalities, also continue to matter. Firms should therefore update filing templates, cost estimates and country-coverage checklists without treating automatic designation as the end of local post-grant work.

China’s Supreme People’s Court Intellectual Property Court released its administrative judgment in case (2022) Zui Gao Fa Zhi Xing Zhong No. 255 on 13 July 2026, dismissing the appeal against the validity of a patent covering an in-vitro diagnostic device and system held by EDAN Diagnostics. The dispute centred on whether the invention had been completed in China and therefore required a confidentiality examination before its first foreign filing. The court treated the place where the substantive technical solution was formed—not the applicant’s nationality, funding source or later commercialisation—as the decisive issue, relying on contemporaneous emails, technical discussions and travel records to support the finding that the relevant inventive work was completed in the United States.

The ruling gives cross-border R&D teams a practical evidentiary benchmark. A law-firm analysis published on 16 July highlighted the weight of contemporaneous technical records: design histories, laboratory notes, inventor locations, division of responsibilities and dated communications should form a coherent record before any overseas filing decision is made. Companies should therefore assess China’s foreign-filing security review requirement as a separate pre-filing compliance step. Reconstructing the development history only after a validity challenge is likely to be slower, more expensive and less persuasive.

China’s National Copyright Administration released a draft revision of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law for public comment on 13 July 2026, with submissions due by 12 August. The current regulations have not been revised since 2013. The draft would expand the text from 38 to 49 articles, align it with the 2020 Copyright Law amendments, broaden the definition of performers, refine rules on accessible-format copies, and introduce a more detailed framework for technological protection measures and rights-management information in Articles 43–46.

For content platforms, software providers and copyright operators, the practical issue is not simply a longer regulation. The draft points toward closer scrutiny of digital rights controls, metadata handling, permitted circumvention, user network and data security, and the treatment of accessible works. The wording may still change after consultation, but affected businesses should already review their licensing, DRM, performer-consent and accessibility workflows and decide whether operational concerns should be raised before the 12 August deadline.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on 20 June 2026, Xiao-i Corporation (Shanghai Zhizhen Intelligent Network Technology, known for its Xiao-i Robot platform) disclosed that on 10 June the Shanghai High People’s Court had rejected all of its claims in case (2020) Hu Zhi Min Chu No. 7. The court found that Apple’s Siri did not infringe Chinese invention patent ZL200410053749.9, covering a “chatbot system”. Zhizhen had sought an injunction and damages originally calculated at RMB 10 billion and later reduced to RMB 5.1 billion, making the dispute one of China’s most closely watched high-value patent cases involving artificial intelligence and consumer electronics. Xiao-i has said it will appeal to the Supreme People’s Court.

The ruling is a reminder that patent validity and infringement are separate questions. In software and AI disputes, the decisive issue is often whether the claimant can prove how the accused system operates internally and map that operation to every relevant claim element. Large damages figures attract attention, but claim construction, technical comparison and access to reliable evidence usually determine the outcome. Companies considering similar litigation should build the evidentiary record around verifiable technical facts from the outset rather than treating an upheld patent as proof of infringement.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have jointly released AI-enabled Health Innovation and IP: From idea to impact. Developed under the Global Initiative on AI for Health, the publication is designed for innovators, start-ups, research institutions and partners seeking to move AI-based health technologies from early development to practical deployment. It covers patents, trade secrets, copyright and data protection, alongside licensing, collaboration, regulation, health-data governance and standards.

The publication is most useful because it treats intellectual property, regulation and commercialization as connected decisions rather than separate workstreams. AI health products often depend on algorithms, training data, clinical validation and continuous updates, so a patent-only strategy can leave major gaps around confidentiality, data rights and regulatory disclosure. Teams should build patent filing, trade-secret controls, contracts and data governance into the project from the outset, then revisit that mix as validation, approval and market deployment progress.

MyIPO opened a public consultation on 3 July 2026 on proposed amendments to Malaysia’s Copyright Act 1987, with comments due by 14 August. The package spans AI and text-and-data mining, digital enforcement and copyright commercialisation. Among the proposals are rules for the use of protected works in AI training; stronger safeguards for technological protection measures (TPMs) and rights management information (RMI); a tighter online service-provider safe harbour with a notice-and-takedown window that may be as short as 12 hours; dynamic injunctions capable of reaching mirror, clone and successor sites; and criminal powers to seize and forfeit domain names linked to infringement. Orphan works, an artist’s resale right, collective-management transparency and reform of the Copyright Tribunal are also under review.

This is not a narrow technical update. If enacted in its current direction, it could materially alter platform operations, licensing budgets and the compliance burden for AI developers. A 12-hour takedown standard would demand near-continuous complaint triage, evidence preservation and escalation procedures, while businesses training models should begin mapping data provenance, legal bases and licensing exposure now. Dynamic injunctions and domain seizures may make anti-piracy action faster, but their scope, proportionality and procedural safeguards will need careful drafting. Companies affected by the proposals have a limited window to submit practical evidence before 14 August rather than waiting for the bill to crystallise.