Insights

The UAE government’s 1 May 2026 update on intellectual property enforcement puts online infringement in sharper focus. Look-alike packaging on social media and e-commerce platforms, unauthorised use of product images, and fake brand accounts are now framed as issues for faster takedown action and administrative penalties, with telecom regulators expected to support a more coordinated response.

The second message is practical: customs and police cooperation is becoming more evidence-driven. Dubai Customs and law enforcement are tightening the chain of evidence across import, storage and distribution, while repeat commercial infringement may face escalating fines. Brand owners entering the Gulf market should not treat enforcement as a last-minute reaction; image authorisations, channel records, platform monitoring and customs filings need to be in place before a problem becomes public.

In early May, WIPO renewed its warning to users of the PCT and Madrid systems after a wave of fraudulent emails sought payment of unofficial fees. The messages often imitate official wording, use misleading sender details, and claim that the recipient’s protection status has been compromised. Some appear to invoke the names of WIPO, the EPO, the EUIPO or national offices in the Americas, creating the impression that an urgent payment is needed to preserve an application, registration or renewal.

The practical risk is straightforward: these emails target the moments when applicants are already managing deadlines, translations, renewals and official fee payments. A payment request that arrives outside the normal channel should be checked against the official case record, verified payment routes and known office communications before any action is taken. For companies using international IP systems, payment verification is no longer a minor accounting step; it is part of basic portfolio risk control.

Mexico’s amended Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property has turned ambush marketing into a more immediate compliance issue for brands planning campaigns around the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The reform published on 3 April adds a specific administrative infringement to Article 386 of the LFPPI, covering acts that lead the public to reasonably assume an official sponsorship relationship between a distinctive sign and a mass public or private event.

For non-sponsors, the risk now extends beyond unauthorised use of official logos. Social media copy, promotional hashtags, colour schemes, ticket campaigns, influencer posts and retail displays may all require closer review if they suggest partnership, endorsement or official status. The practical message is simple: football-themed advertising is not automatically off-limits, but any campaign that borrows the event’s commercial aura should be cleared before launch, with evidence showing that the brand is not presenting itself as an official sponsor.

Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) is opening the second phase of its trademark fast-track programme from May 2026, with 3,000 places available across the year. For applicants that need a registration quickly for platform access, public funding, dispute handling or international portfolio coordination, the programme may become a practical timing tool rather than a procedural formality.

The reform also changes how High Reputation Marks can be handled in Brazil. Under the rule effective from 1 May, an applicant may link registration numbers in several classes within a single high-reputation request, instead of preparing separate filings around one registration at a time. Large brand owners should benefit from a cleaner enforcement route, but the shortcut is not automatic protection: the underlying registrations still need to be valid, well managed and supported by evidence that shows the mark’s market recognition.

A USPTO decision disclosed on 3 May tightens the link between inter partes review and ex parte reexamination. The key point is the timing of estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(1): a request for reexamination is not treated merely as a filing made on a particular day, but as a pending request that continues until the Office orders reexamination under 35 U.S.C. § 304.

That reading narrows a familiar strategy: challenge the patent first through IPR, then use ex parte reexamination as a second route if the IPR record begins to look unfavourable. If the IPR final written decision has already issued and the Office has not yet ordered reexamination, the requester may be barred from pursuing reexamination on the same grounds, or grounds that reasonably could have been raised in the IPR. Timing now affects not only efficiency, but whether the procedural path remains open at all.

The USPTO’s recent memorandum on Rule 132 Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations puts a sharper lens on a familiar but often underdeveloped argument in AI, software and biotechnology patent prosecution: whether the claimed invention improves technology rather than merely using a computer to reach a desired result. The agency is not creating a separate patentability regime for AI. It is asking applicants to connect eligibility arguments to technical facts already disclosed in the application.

For applicants, the practical message is direct. Describing an AI model that classifies, predicts, generates or supports a decision will rarely be enough on its own. The specification and any supporting declaration should explain how the invention makes a computer system, data-processing workflow, training process or diagnostic procedure faster, cheaper, more stable or more efficient.