Insights

On 5 May, 32 South Korean copyright and creator organisations issued a joint statement opposing the government’s “use first, settle later” approach under the Korea AI Action Plan. The proposal is framed as a way to accelerate AI development by widening room for fair use, but creator groups argue that it would weaken their ability to control how their works are used.

The dispute is not merely about compensation rates. It goes to the starting point of copyright bargaining: whether AI developers should obtain permission before using protected works, or whether mass use can be normalised first and priced afterwards. That question is likely to shape the next phase of South Korea’s copyright reform debate.

CNIPA this week issued the Annual Work Guide for the Demonstration Programme on Building China into an IP Powerhouse (2026). The policy signal is fairly direct: assessment should move further towards patent quality and industrialisation, rather than simple filing-count targets. The guide calls for patent quality and patent commercialisation to be emphasised in project reviews, institutional evaluation, enterprise recognition and talent assessment, while avoiding the use of patent numbers as a stand-alone benchmark. For local authorities, parks, universities and demonstration enterprises, filing volume alone will carry less weight; pre-filing assessment, conversion potential and claim stability will matter more in practice.

The overseas risk agenda is also becoming more concrete. The guide refers to monitoring and early-warning work in high-risk areas such as cross-border e-commerce and trademark squatting, and asks demonstration enterprises and relevant participants to conduct overseas IP compliance self-checks for export products. Exporters and online sellers should not wait until a platform complaint, customs detention or foreign lawyer’s letter appears. Target-market trademark searches, design and patent clearance, and watch services for bad-faith brand filings now need to sit much earlier in the go-to-market checklist.

Following World IP Day on 26 April, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has formally released guidance on enforcement for sports event broadcasts and related merchandise. The practical point is clear: illegal live streaming is now being treated as a time-sensitive copyright enforcement problem, with right holders expected to use pre-filed information to seek temporary blocking of specific infringing domains.

For sports brands and content distributors, the value lies less in a new slogan and more in timing. A pirated match stream can capture its audience within minutes, while ordinary notice-and-takedown routes often move too slowly for live sport. If the new fast takedown and temporary blocking mechanism works as intended, rights owners active in Southeast Asia should prepare their broadcast rights records, trademark evidence for merchandise, monitoring logs and domain-level documentation before major fixtures begin.

Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property has signalled this week, in its response to the 2026 U.S. Special 301 Report, that the draft amendment to the Patent Act has moved into the final accelerated stage of legislation. Thailand remains on the U.S. intellectual property Watch List, but the reform message is now more practical than political: companies filing patents, designs or technology-related matters in Thailand should revisit authorisation records, filing calendars and likely prosecution costs before the law changes rather than after.

In Malaysia, MyIPO’s revised Guidelines of Trademark 2019 (VA1-2026) are now becoming a live item in corporate compliance reviews. The sharper points are the formal review of powers of attorney and the examination of marks containing foreign words or scripts. If a compliant POA is not filed within the required period, the agent’s authority may not be recognised; if a mark includes non-Roman or foreign-language elements, translation and transliteration materials should be prepared early. For brand owners, the lesson is plain: in key Southeast Asian markets, formalities are no longer a harmless clean-up exercise.

With Indonesia’s Ministerial Regulation No. 6 of 2026 now fully in force, DJKI has used its online filing system this week to issue a practical warning: any excess claims fees for new patent applications must be paid in full at the time of filing. The message is procedural, but its effect is immediate. Claim counting, specification drafting and payment checks now need to be handled as one filing task, not as separate follow-up items.

For applicants, the main risk is not simply a higher official fee. It is the loss of room to correct a fee gap after the application has entered the system. Before filing in Indonesia, applicants should review the claim set, trim dependent claims where commercially sensible, and make sure the local filing budget matches the claim structure. DJKI’s approach also points to a more front-loaded patent filing environment, where online validation may become as important as the legal drafting itself.

In early May, the Vietnamese government stepped up its explanation and implementation messaging around Decree No. 134/2026/ND-CP, which took effect on 9 April 2026. The decree amends Decree No. 17/2023/ND-CP and gives more detailed treatment to AI-assisted creation, the use of protected text and data for AI training, rights-reservation mechanisms, and the responsibilities of intermediary services and digital content platforms. For generative AI providers, content platforms and businesses using AI-generated material, the compliance question is moving beyond a simple AI label.

The practical point is sharper: companies will need cleaner records of training-data sources, human creative contribution, takedown handling and downstream licensing. Vietnam is not closing the door on AI-driven content businesses, but it is making clear that copyright compliance has to be built into product design and platform operations. Waiting until a dispute arises may leave platforms with weak evidence, unclear allocation of liability and limited room to explain how a piece of AI-assisted content was actually produced.