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In an effort to combat counterfeiting, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce has issued revised Regulations on Printing Trademarks to control the publishing of packaging materials bearing trademarks. The new regulations, which are now in force, replace the previous rules issued in 1996.

As part of a pattern indicating a shift by the Chinese courts towards heavier penalties for IP right infringement, the Supreme People's Court has issued a Notice on Further Strengthening of Intellectual Property Rights Protection. Among other things, the notice requests that courts at all levels severely penalize acts of counterfeiting.

Tea farmers associations in Taiwan have announced plans to register the geographical indications Alishan and Ali Mountain as trademarks in China. It is hoped that registration, coupled with changes to the packaging of tea from the Alishan region, will help to deter counterfeiters in China.

The Interior Ministry of Vietnam has issued Decision 22/2004/QD-BNV on the Establishment of the Vietnam Association for Anti-counterfeiting and Trademark Protection. The VATAP is a voluntary association of Vietnamese economic organizations that will, among other things, propose measures to deal with counterfeiting and to protect trademarks.

In Ong Ah Tiong v Public Prosecutor, the Chief Justice of Singapore has upheld a sentence of 32 months' imprisonment for breach of the Trademarks Act and Copyright Act. He noted that the increasingly stringent approach that Singapore courts are taking against IP infringement is justified by the fact that, among other things, Singapore is a prominent business hub and its government has made strong efforts to promote it as a regional IP centre.

Taiwan's largest online auctioneer has cancelled the accounts of three sellers after the Criminal Investigation Bureau confirmed that they were selling knockoffs of products manufactured by the British label Burberry. The move is part of the government's attempt to stamp out the sale of counterfeit goods over the Internet.

In Ardath Tobacco Company Limited v Bhai, the Delhi High Court has extended its practice of using John Doe orders in counterfeiting cases. Such orders are particularly efficient as they allow court commissioners to search the premises of the defendant as well as those of any other party suspected of infringement.

Thailand, like many other countries, has experienced an increase in the number of online vendors of unauthorized goods within its territory. However, a series of successful raids against a sophisticated counterfeiting operation has demonstrated that the machinery and willingness to trace and prosecute online IP infringers exists in Thailand.

The Federal Court of Australia has ordered a family group of traders that dealt in counterfeit PlayStation games to pay Sony for profits made on the sale of the games. The court took a stern view of the defendants' "knowing, deliberate and dishonest infringement" of Sony's trademarks.

The Korean Intellectual Property Office has announced a new anti-counterfeiting plan, under which local governments will take more initiative. KIPO will provide them with inspectors, and special instructions and information on distribution networks for counterfeit goods. Meanwhile, representatives of luxury goods manufacturers have made demands to make counterfeiting convictions more severe.

A recent case, in which police seized over 150,000 pairs of counterfeit sunglasses that were being sold in Russia under the famous LANCEL mark and had an estimated retail value of $1.5 million, shows that despite the obstacles to enforcement that exist in Russia, it is still possible to obtain very effective results quickly and efficiently.

The government has reaffirmed its long-running 'No Fakes' campaign, which is designed to encourage retailers to trade only in genuine products. The campaign is one of a variety of measures taken by Hong Kong, some in conjunction with the Guangdong Province, that are intended to combat IP infringement.

The new Customs Code of the Russian Federation, which has introduced a register of goods protected by IP rights, has come into force. It is hoped that the register will help customs authorities to detect counterfeit goods.

As part of the government's campaign against counterfeiting launched last year, the Ministry of Finance has submitted a bill amending the Customs Tariff Law that will help IP owners take immediate action against infringers by allowing customs to reveal the identity of the importers of suspected counterfeit goods.

China's new Regulations on Customs Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, which enable customs to detain and confiscate goods infringing IP rights, will come into force on March 1 to replace the 1995 regulations.