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Industry organizations in the United States have begun to file submissions to the US Trade Representative as part of the annual Special 301 review.

The Australian Full Federal Court in Pinefair P/L v Bedford Industries Rehabilitation Association Inc has found that a patent´ s product claim may be infringed by a product that came into existence as part of a manufacturing process. The patent related to a garden edging product consisting of halved pine logs with an elongated band affixed along a flat rear face of the logs to hold the logs together. Pinefair´ s alleged infringing product connected the logs with an extruded plastic strip during manufacture, but sought to avoid the patent by the additional step of cutting the plastic strip at each log, so that the final product did not have the elongated band connected to each element.

In recent years, the German Utility Model Act has undergone several important changes which, among other things, have made utility model protection available for essentially the same subject matter (except methods) as for patent protection, and extended the maximum period of protection to 10 years. However, a utility model will still be registered without examination as to the novelty and non-obviousness of its subject matter. Registration will be effected within six to eight weeks after completion of the filing procedure.

South Africa has acceded to the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The accession procedure was completed on March 16 1999 with the result that an applicant for an international patent application (PCT) can now designate South Africa (ZA) as one of the countries in which the international patent application will be validated. Accordingly, it is no longer necessary for an applicant for an international patent application to file a separate national patent application in South Africa (in addition to the international patent application) in order to extend patent rights to the territory of South Africa. Instead, such an applicant can now cover South Africa merely by ticking an appropriate box on the application papers at the time of filing the international patent application.

Managing intellectual property has always been a headache in Russia. Way back in the USSR at the time of total control of everything, intellectual property along with all other things belonged to the State and the inventor did not have any right to the product of his labour. When the iron curtain fell, the pendulum swung to the other extreme. A rather liberal Patent Law was adopted in 1992. It provided that the inventor or his employer would own and dispose of his work at will. It also gave ample opportunities to the applicant to patent his inventions abroad and sell them if he chose to do so. There were no restrictions on where or what to patent which could jeopardize the security of the State. True, the Law contained provisions to the effect that there would be a special law on secret inventions. Unfortunately, that law has not seen light and there are not even signs of it ever being discussed at any forum.

The revised Japanese Design Law came into force on January 1 1999. The main changes are as follows: (1) Broader scope and stronger protection for industrial designs which exhibit creativity:

Comparative advertising in Mexico is mainly regulated by the Federal Law on Consumer Protection (FLCP) and the Mexican Industrial Property Law (IPL). The FLCP protects consumers against deceptive and abusive advertisements. Article 32 establishes that the information or advertisement with respect to goods or services which is made known by any means, must be truthful, liable to be verified and exempt of texts, dialogues, sounds, images or any other descriptions which induce or may induce to error or confusion due to an inaccuracy of said texts. Since this provision deals with advertising in general, it is applicable to a case of comparative advertising when that is false.

Sending rockets into space is not NASA’s only role, Robert Norwood, director of its commercial programmes division, tells Ralph Cunningham.

Rights owners are becoming increasingly creative in the exploitation of their intellectual property rights.

When Charlene Barshefsky arrives in China in mid-February for the US Trade Representative’s regular visit, she will have her hands full.