Insights

EUIPO reported on 7 July that it received 104,263 EU trade mark applications between January and June 2026, up 8.4% year on year, while EU design applications totalled 61,951, down about 1%. Combined filings reached 166,214, the Office’s highest first-half total on record. The increase was driven by trade marks rather than designs, but the design figure remains strong enough to show that demand for unitary EU protection is holding up.

The more practical change came with the design framework fully applicable from 1 July. EUIPO now accepts dynamic 3D representations in OBJ and STL formats and animated representations in MP4. One dynamic or animated file may be filed per design, with a 20 MB limit for the individual file and for the total attachments relating to each design, while the complete application may reach 1 GB; up to ten static JPEG views are also permitted. Multiple applications may contain up to 50 designs and additional designs are charged at a flat rate. This removes the old dependence on a small set of static views, but richer files do not automatically create broader protection. Applicants should test model integrity, representation consistency, H.264 encoding and the absence of an audio track before filing, because a technically sophisticated presentation can still produce an avoidable procedural defect.

On 9 July 2026, the UK Intellectual Property Office used specialist audio-equipment cover maker ARB Covers to show how a small business can build intellectual property checks into product development before launch. The company has registered around 15 designs and secured trade mark protection for its brand, while also drawing on support from Business & IP Centres. The feature is not a change in the law. Its value lies in the practical message: a smaller business can start with a disciplined review of product appearance, branding and disclosure timing rather than treating IP as something to consider only after copying occurs.

The strongest approach is usually layered. Registered designs can protect visible product features, while trade marks support the goodwill attached to a name and identity. UK unregistered design rights and supplementary unregistered design protection may arise automatically, but their scope, duration and evidential demands differ, so they are not substitutes for registration. SMEs selling products that are easy to imitate should preserve drawings, prototypes and first-disclosure records, and assess filing options before public release. The point is not to accumulate rights for their own sake, but to make copying the product, packaging and brand materially harder.

The compulsory licence dispute around Vertex’s high-priced cystic fibrosis drug Trikafta has again pushed South Africa’s long-delayed patent reform into the spotlight. Public-health groups and legal commentators argued on 8 July 2026 that, despite years of policy work, South Africa still relies on a depository-style patent system without full substantive examination, allowing weak pharmaceutical patents and evergreening risks to persist. At the same time, public materials from the Competition Commission and CIPC continue to indicate that the long-pending Patents Bill is meant to introduce substantive search and examination and modernise compulsory-licensing tools.

The immediate pressure is no longer just about one access-to-medicines dispute. It is about whether South Africa can finally connect stricter patentability standards, workable opposition routes and public-health safeguards in one legislative package. From a practical perspective, it would not be surprising if the DTIC now tries to move the Bill more quickly; the real impact for pharmaceutical and chemical businesses would be felt much earlier, at filing, prosecution and portfolio-planning stage, rather than only in later enforcement fights.

On 30 June 2026, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) used the aftermath of the Philippines’ sixth WTO Trade Policy Review to put two strands in the same frame: its position inside the PCT system and its capability-building work for examining inventions involving artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. That pairing matters. It shows the Philippines is no longer presenting intellectual property as a narrow domestic legal file, but as part of the country’s wider trade, innovation and digital-governance infrastructure.

For businesses, the significance goes beyond another international mention. In the government’s policy statement for the WTO review, the Philippines again underscored that IPOPHL, after being designated by WIPO as an International Searching Authority and International Preliminary Examining Authority, was also recognised by the USPTO in 2024. At the same time, the broader official narrative links AI-related examination training, institutional AI strategy and NCIPR-led e-commerce enforcement in one policy arc. That is a more complete signal than it first appears: the filing gateway, the examination layer and the platform-enforcement layer are increasingly being treated as parts of one system.

On 24 June, Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) said it had removed or suspended 1,322 suspected trademark and copyright listings from online platforms in the first five months of 2026, while related enforcement led to 116 cases and 224,042 seized items at storage and warehouse points. The more important signal was rhetorical as much as operational: the DIP is no longer describing online infringement as a simple takedown problem, but as a chain that runs from platform data to upstream supply nodes.

A few weeks earlier, Thai media personality DJ Nui pushed a different issue into the spotlight by filing a sound-mark application for his signature laugh. The DIP used the case to underline a broader point: jingles, catchphrases, app sounds and distinctive voices are becoming real brand assets in the digital economy, and AI voice cloning is turning sound protection into a practical defensive tool rather than a novelty.

July 2 marks the deadline for public comments in the USTR’s Section 301 investigation into Vietnam’s protection and enforcement of intellectual property. The investigation is aimed at familiar pain points: online piracy, counterfeit goods, and unauthorised software use. What matters for businesses, however, is not only the U.S. filing deadline. It is that Vietnam is trying to show, in the same window, that enforcement is becoming more forceful on the ground.

At the same time, a second track is moving faster. As the amended IP law and its implementing rules begin to operate, examination timelines for trademarks, industrial designs and patents are being read by the market as materially shorter than before. Taken together, these are not random developments. They look like a coordinated signal: tougher enforcement for infringement, and faster pathways for securing rights.