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Ralph Cunningham, Hong Kong

Australia’s Federal Court has ruled against Sony in a case over the mod-chipping of PlayStations. As the first case to test provisions of the Digital Agenda Amendment Act, the arguments about its rights and wrongs are likely to run and run. Ralph Cunningham reports

Valery Medvedev of Gorodissky & Partners in Moscow explains that counterfeiting is a big problem in Russia, but that there are tools available to deal with it

A trade mark licensing programme should be a win-win situation. But, as Dickerson M Downing explains, licensors in the US need to be aware of the risk of products liability suits

Svetlana B Felitsyna, Natalia A Serpkova, Sergey Y Yakovlev and Leonid E Goukasyan of Sojuzpatent in Moscow provide an overview of intellectual property protection available in the Russian Federation, and examine the proposed changes to the trade mark regime

In most countries, the most expensive part of prosecuting a patent application is the cost of search and examination. Singapore took a positive approach by allowing an applicant to rely on search and examination results for a corresponding application in lieu of search and examination of the Singapore application. No official fees are imposed on an applicant who chooses to do so. For this purpose, corresponding applications from Australia, Canada, the EPO, UK, US and PCT (not designating Singapore) may be used. A corresponding application must relate to substantially the same invention and be connected to the Singapore application by a priority claim, for example, a common priority claim.

In a row over the ownership of a programme format, Delhi High Court has granted protection to information revealed in a series of meetings about the programme idea. The decision is a triumph for the protection of confidential information, argues Binny Kalra

Customs is a very important institution in any country. So it is in Russia. Until the advent in Russia of the concept of intellectual property, Customs served to thwart undesirable imports and keep them outside the Russian borders. Also exports were controlled to implement the economic policy of the government. All this remains a top priority for Customs today.

There is an indication that North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is changing. Recently, North Korea announced the abolition of the "distribution system", its symbol of communism. The abolition symbolizes the recognition of the "privatization of property, " as North Korea became the "last experimental station on earth" relating to the introduction of a market economy.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's infamous Festo decision has led to countless debates as to how careful one should now be when amending the claims of US patent applications during prosecution before the USPTO. The US Supreme Court, in its judgment rendered in May 2002, has partially softened the harsh impact of the CAFC's original decision, which applied a file wrapper estoppel completely barring the use of the doctrine of equivalents in subsequent infringement proceedings as far as the amended portion of the claim was concerned.