October 31, 2020, marked the closing of the public comment
period for Thailand's proposed amendments to the Patent Act
B.E. 2522 (1979). The Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) had
published its latest draft of the amendments on September 30 for
the month-long period of public feedback.
The process of drafting amendments has been pending for several
years, but it began to take a higher profile in February 2018 with
the convening of public hearings on the proposed new legislation.
After a series of committee meetings through November of that year,
the cabinet approved a set of proposed amendments in January
2019.
After further internal discussions, attention turned to the
drafting of a companion law specifically for industrial designs, in
preparation for Thailand's accession to the Hague Agreement
Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs. A
similar process of public hearings and committee meetings was
followed, but in March 2020, the
