A new regulation in Laos provides significant practical clarity on procedures and contingencies related to patents and petty patents. Published in the Official Gazette on December 23, the Decision on Patents and Petty Patents no.1714/MOST, dated December 15, 2020, is the latest step in Laos’ ongoing efforts to improve the utility of its system for patents and petty patents. Laos has steadily built up its patent regime since the early 2000s by issuing laws and regulations defining the key elements. These continued to be updated after Laos joined the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 2006, and in recent years, various regional and bilateral cooperation has helped accelerate some patent applications. However, even after the amended Law on Intellectual Property took effect in June 2018, the process could still be prohibitively time-consuming. The new decision, which replaces a 2012 decision on the same topic, addresses this by clarifying and simplifying many key points, the most significant of which are detailed below. Priority date. Applications filed under the PCT have a 31-month time limit for entering the national phase, counting from the priority date. This is a small change from the 2012 decision, which set the time limit at 30 months. Submission of original documents. If the pre-filled, unsigned form for the power of attorney (POA) and deed of assignment (DOA) is submitted, scanned copies of the notarized POA and DOA must be submitted within 15 days (down from 60 days under the 2012 decision). However, the original documents must still be submitted within 60 days. International classification. Applicants can ask the Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) to indicate the international class of patent and petty patent applications. If there are amendments to the class, applicants can file an amendment form with the DIP free of charge. International classification was not mentioned in the 2012 decision. Publication timeline.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a significant increase in the popularity of electronic meetings among businesses across the world, as physical meetings became unfeasible due to government lockdowns and regulations limiting gatherings to limit the risk of further spreading the disease. In Thailand, this turn of events has resulted in the promulgation of a new electronic meeting law to modernize rules that facilitate the convening of corporate entities’ statutory meetings as required under Thai law. Electronic meetings in Thailand have been permitted to some degree since June 27, 2014, when the Announcement of the National Council for Peace and Order No. 74/2557 on Teleconferences through Electronic Means B.E. 2557 (2014) first allowed the practice, subject to various restrictions. However, many companies considered two strict requirements under this announcement to be impractical: at least one-third of the quorum for the electronic meeting had to physically attend the meeting at the designated meeting venue, which implies that no more than two-thirds of the quorum could choose to attend the meeting via electronic means; and all participants of the electronic meeting (whether attending electronically or in person) had to be physically present in Thailand at the time of the meeting, which effectively prohibited overseas participation. New Rules for Electronic Meetings The new electronic meeting law, the Royal Decree on Teleconferences through Electronic Means B.E. 2563 (2020), came into effect on April 19, 2020, replacing the 2014 order and relaxing its most onerous limitations in order to facilitate meetings of directors and shareholders via electronic means during the COVID-19 pandemic. The key relaxations codified by the royal decree include allowing all attendees to attend meetings via electronic means, such as by phone or videoconferencing, from anywhere in the world. Furthermore, there is no longer a physical attendance requirement, and notices (and enclosures) calling a meeting can

When Vietnam’s new Law on Enterprises of 2020 (2020 LOE) came into effect on January 1, 2021, the implementing regulations for corporate matters guiding the now-repealed Law on Enterprises of 2014 ceased their effectiveness, per principles under the laws on promulgation of legislative documents. As a result, governmental bodies and enterprises have been awaiting the issuance of new implementing regulations that will apply to the 2020 LOE. The first major guidance arrived on January 4, 2021, when the government issued Decree No. 01/2021/ND-CP on enterprise registration (Decree 01), which replaces Decree No. 78/2015/ND-CP dated September 14, 2015 (Decree 78) on the same matter. This article discusses some notable points of Decree 01 in comparison to Decree 78. Operating Status of Enterprises Decree 01 sets out seven possible legal statuses under which an established enterprise may be classified in its profile on the National Business Registration Portal (NBRP), which is available for public access: Active; Business temporarily suspended; No longer in business at the registered address; Enterprise registration certificate revoked due to decision issued by tax authority; In dissolution process, divided, merged, or acquired; In bankruptcy process; and Dissolved, bankrupt, or ceased to exist. By default, the status of a company is active. The status will be updated to one of the other options in the NBRP when the respective licensing procedures are completed at the provincial Department of Planning and Investment (e.g., for temporary suspension of business or initiation of dissolution process), or according to the decision of the relevant authorities (e.g., for bankruptcy). The previous Decree 78 did not provide detail on the available status options. The common statuses observed on the NBRP before the enactment of Decree 01 were “active,” “business temporarily suspended,” “locked” (akin to the current “in dissolution process”), and “dissolved.” This change will make it easier for a third party to identify the operating status of a

Maintaining positive employee relations is a top concern for virtually all companies. Many companies in Thailand—especially those located in the country’s industrial estates—have labor unions, while others rely on other non-union pathways for attending to the concerns of employees. In all of these cases, the union or collective group of employees also chooses members of the “employee committee” that is charged with fostering good relations and open communications with the employer through regular meetings dedicated to discussion of workplace matters. Companies with a workforce of 50 or more employees need to understand the roles of the employee committee and the specific rights accorded to the committee members, which are different from the rights of the other employees. Besides the obvious benefits that this understanding has for relations with their employees, it is also important if an employer takes disciplinary action against employee committee members, as violation of a committee member’s rights could result in the employer facing criminal penalties. The legal basis for these employee committees is the Labor Relations Act B.E. 2518 (LRA), which stipulates that in any workplace with at least 50 employees, the employees or their labor union of the business establishment is entitled to establish an employee committee. Members are elected (or, in the case of a labor union, appointed) to three-year terms on the committee, with the total number of committee members depending on the size of the workforce, as shown in the table. Membership Requirements Among partially unionized workforces, labor unions are generally given precedence when it comes to control of the committee. If a labor union whose members account for more than 20% of the total employees in a workplace, the union gets to appoint the majority of the employee committee members (e.g., four out of a seven-person committee, five of a nine-person committee, etc.). Moreover,

Like many countries, Thailand requires stamp duty to be paid on the execution of certain legal instruments. A liable person who fails to pay stamp duty on a required instrument can be subject to a maximum surcharge of six times the applicable stamp duty, and an instrument on which stamp duty has not been paid will not be admissible as evidence in civil cases (that is, it will have limited legal weight and enforceability). Before July 2019, there were three methods for paying stamp duty: Affixing adhesive stamps on the instrument (and canceling it by the liable person in order to make sure that the adhesive stamp duty cannot be reused); Having a stamp impressed on the paper instrument; or Filing a prescribed form and paying the duty by cash or cashiers cheque at an area revenue office. In addition to paying the correct amount of stamp duty, the law also requires that stamp duty on certain instruments be paid using a specific prescribed method from the list above. Failure to use the prescribed method would be considered as that the stamp duty not having been paid. For example, a hire-of-work instrument is subject to stamp duty, but if the remuneration stated within the agreement is at least THB 1,000,000 (approximately USD 33,500), the stamp duty must be paid by filing a prescribed form and paying by cash or cashier’s cheque at an area revenue office. Affixing adhesive stamp duty is not allowed in that circumstance. E-Stamp Duty In June 2019, the Revenue Department introduced a fourth method of paying stamp duty, allowing online payments in specific circumstances (e-Stamp Duty). After the launch of the e-Stamp Duty system, the Revenue Department issued a notification (Notification of the Director-General of Revenue concerning Stamp Duty (No. 58)) requiring stamp duty on five instruments that are executed in electronic format

The cannabis plant has fascinated many civilizations, societies, and individuals through the centuries with its unique properties, and many have learned how to benefit from these, finding a variety of therapeutic and industrial uses of the plant that, in turn, enhanced domestic economies worldwide. In Thailand, cannabis plants and their derivatives have been used since ancient times as treatment for many diseases, and the plant forms a key ingredient in many Thai traditional medicinal remedies. However, over the past few decades, cannabis usage was seen to change in a way that became incrementally more abusive, resulting in outright prohibition in almost all countries. Thailand was no exception, and in 1979 the Thai government officially enacted the Narcotics Act forbidding the use of cannabis and listing cannabis plants and their derivatives—most notably marijuana (cannabis with psychoactive properties) and hemp (cannabis with limited or no psychoactive properties)—as category 5 narcotics (i.e., prohibited substances). Despite these restrictions, many Thais continued to use cannabis illegally, and some urged the government to legalize personal and commercial use of cannabis plants and their derivatives. Eventually, some in the Thai government agreed that it was time to consider steps toward legalization, As a result, the government has been taking action to delist cannabis plants from the list of prohibited narcotics since 2018, when a regulation allowed the cultivation of hemp for industrial and non-commercial purposes, such as household cooking and research and development. The next significant step came in February 2019, when the Narcotics Act (No. 7) was amended, legalizing medical marijuana within certain limitations. In national elections the following month, the Bhumjaithai political party, whose election campaign included a pledge to decriminalize and legalize cannabis plants, won substantial support in parts of the country and chose to join the coalition government, with the Bhumjaithai party leader assuming

Since 2014, Indonesia’s domain name registry (PANDI) has overseen the registration of .id domain names, following the earlier country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), such as .co.id, .or.id, and .go.id. PANDI has recently reported on the growth of .id domain names in 2019, which saw an increase in registrations of about 45%, reaching a total of 135,000 registrants. An Indonesian Internet Providers Association (APJII) nationwide survey found that the number of internet users in Indonesia increased by 14.6 percent to 196 million people in the period between 2019 and Q2 2020, up from 171 million in 2018. The survey also revealed that Indonesia’s internet penetration rate has gone up to 73.7 percent. This means that the country is catching up with neighboring Brunei, Singapore, and Thailand, whose internet penetration rates exceeded 70 percent last year. Part of this increase seems to be related to the limitation of in-person activity in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. This internet usage growth has also meant a higher incidence of cybercrimes and online disputes, including over domain names. According to the domain name dispute statistics from WIPO, there have been 274 generic top-level domain name disputes involving Indonesian respondents to date. Meanwhile, 18 cases have so far been decided by PANDI’s Domain Name Dispute Resolution (PPND) in fights against Indonesian ccTLD cybersquatters, third parties who attempt to register domain names using the trademarks of others. PPND, a non-litigation dispute settlement body for disputes over Indonesian internet domain names, handles domain name disputes related to trademarks, registered names or regarding matters of decency. The examination of such disputes is conducted by PPND panel(s). PANDI’s Domain Name General Policy version 6.0, dated February 25, 2019, explains the five categories of.id domain names: normative, trademark-related, product- or service-related, distributorship-related, or institutional. Ministry of Communication Regulation No. 23 of 2013 regarding

Thailand’s long-awaited new Trade Competition Act B.E. 2560 (2017) (TCA) came into effect on October 5, 2017, and the legislation’s extensive reforms of both substantive and procedural rules from the preceding version of the law have been both effective and revolutionizing. Significantly, the TCA lays out an efficient structure for the Trade Competition Commission (TCC) and grants independence to its administrative office, the Office of Trade Competition Commission (OTCC). Consequently, enforcement of this law—which had been almost absent in the past 20 years—is picking up pace. This article will examine the ongoing developments under this law in recent years, and will highlight its current application by discussing some of the TCC’s latest guidelines. TCC: A Developer-Regulator Since its establishment in 2018, the TCC has proven that its role and responsibilities are beyond those of a conventional regulator and law enforcer. The OTCC, with the support of its ad hoc subcommittees, have been actively monitoring the conduct of business operators and the level of competition in various markets and sectors, and the commission is well recognized for its publicizing of the TCA and establishment of new regulations under the law. Through various channels and platforms, a series of regulations, reports on market conditions, press releases, rulings, and precautionary statements have been published, and the TCC’s spokesperson often appears in the media to educate the public. To streamline the exchange of information and collaboration, the TCC and the OTCC have entered into an MOU with six sectoral regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand, the Office of Insurance Commission, and others. The TCC has also exercised its pre-emptive power to prevent suspicious trade practices and transactions. Prohibitive warnings have been issued against potential infringement, such as unfair trade practices by food delivery platform operators and a proposed merger by potentially market-dominating major