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Ingrid Hering, London

Singapore and the countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) will offer each other some of the most advanced IP protection in the world when their free trade agreement comes into effect, probably on January 1 2003. The EFTA-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (ESFTA) was signed on June 26 at the EFTA ministerial meeting in Iceland and is the first free trade pact an east Asian country has signed with EFTA, which is made up of Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The IP section of the agreement goes beyond anything on IP contained in the free trade agreements Singapore has signed in the last two years with New Zealand and Japan.

China's new trade mark legislation does not address parallel imports. But pressure is building to deal with the issue. The interests of all competing parties need to be considered, not least those of the trade mark owners, writes Yuan Xiao-dong

Ralph Cunningham, Hong Kong

There is an anomaly in the law of exhaustion of rights between national trade marks governed by the Trade Marks Directive and Community Trade Marks (CTMs) governed by the Trade Marks Regulation. It is well known that article 7(1) of the Directive provides for community exhaustion and that pursuant to the EEA Agreement, this rule has been expanded to give rise to EEA exhaustion. Therefore, if goods are put on the market with the consent of the trade mark owner in Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein or any of the EU member states, then the exclusive rights given by the national trade marks are exhausted.

Geographical indications are a critical issue for India where many distinctive products have originated. The Indian government has introduced its own imperfect legislation but what is really needed are rules at the international level, argues Latha R

The Mexican Industrial Property Law (IPL) grants a patentee the right for the exclusive exploitation of the patented invention. Therefore, the patent gives the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale or importing the covered invention. Briefly, in a patent infringement action the plaintiff must prove the following:

EU Directive 98/71/EC requiring harmonization of the laws on design rights in the member states was transposed into the French Intellectual Property Code on July 25 2001, with a transition period which ended on October 1 2001.

Over the next 18 months, 10 central and eastern European countries will receive their patent green card – membership of the European Patent Organization. Ingrid Hering visited some of the candidate countries to find out how they are preparing

What are your favourite brands of tea, coffee, soft drink and whisky? If your answers are Lipton, Nescafe, Coca-Cola and Johnny Walker then your answers are not far away from those given by consumers polled in Readers' Digest's annual survey conducted in six Asian markets namely Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Respondents were asked to rate different brands of goods and services from a range of one to five. The score would reveal the respondent's preferred brand in 37 categories which included their preferred airline, shampoo and conditioner, instant noodles, mineral water, car, watch, cooking oil, air conditioner and hotel.