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The Supreme Court will this month hear arguments in a case that will set the boundaries for what research is exempted from patent infringement. Lily Rin-Laures and Sandip Patel explain what the outcome will mean for researchers and patent owners

US: The Justice Department unveiled a report by its IP Task Force. The report recommends the creation of five new Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Units in Washington DC, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Nashville and Orlando. The Department has 13 CHIP Units across the US at present. The report also includes calls for an increase in the number of FBI special agents dedicated to investigating IP crimes, and the use of more federal resources and tougher enforcement to tackle infringers. US: A California state court of appeals in Los Angeles upheld a $500 million infringement verdict against biotechnology leader Genentech. Genentech was found to have hidden licensed sales and not paid royalties on human insulin and human growth hormone developed by the City of Hope National Medical Center. US: Biotechnology company Amgen won a federal district court case against Transkaryotic Therapies (TKT) and Aventis Pharmaceuticals. Judge William Young of the district court of Massachusetts ruled that Transkaryotic and Aventis violated two of Amgen's product patents on erythropoietin and two patents with claims on the production of erythropoietin. TKT said it would appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. US: The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of KP Permanent Make-Up Inc v Lasting Impressions on October 5. Lasting Impressions is claiming trade mark infringement against KP Permanent Make-Up for use of the words micro color on the packaging of KP Permanent's products. In hearing the case, the Court asked whether the classic fair use defence to trade mark infringement is an absolute defence, regardless of whether confusion may result.

Korea's high rates of internet use have helped drive a burgeoning industry in cybersquatting and internet-related trade mark infringement. Ik Hyun Seo explains what IP owners need to know to reclaim and protect their IP rights

Stéphanie Bodoni, London

Fabrizio Miazzetto examines the issues litigants should consider when bringing proceedings before the new CTM and CD courts in Alicante and discusses the opportunities for rights owners to forum shop in Europe

Companies worldwide have been affected by the global credit crunch. Karen Abraham and Jyeshta Mahendran of Shearn Delamore & Co look at what strategies brand owners can adopt to weather the storm

Challenging economic conditions and thus increasing competition drives patent wars before the courts in Turkey as all over the world. In particular, famous international players in the pharmaceutical industry review all patent rights in this war against others including of course generic drugs manufacturers.

The Bureau of Legal Affairs is often reluctant to recognise marks as internationally well known. Editha R Hechanova of Hechanova Bugay & Vilchez provides some guidance for brand owners

The Administrative Council of the EPO recently decided on changes to the EPC Implementing Regulations in Decision CA/D 3/09 that will come into force on April 1 2010. It is believed that these changes, inter alia, enable the speeding up of the examination procedure, as does the opinion accompanying the European search report, which was introduced a few years ago. At present, however, the intended acceleration is not achieved when the applicant delays the reply to the search report until the first communication is received shortly after the request for examination has been filed.

In the case of Elba SpA v Fiamma Sdn Bhd [2008] 3 MLJ, Elba, an Italian maker of cooking appliances, filed an originating motion for a declaration that it owned the Elba mark and that Malaysian company Fiamma's Elba registrations in class seven and 11, which had been registered for more than seven years, were entries made without sufficient cause and/or were entries wrongfully remaining on the register. Elba also asked for an order to expunge the marks from the register under sections 37 and 45 of the Trade Marks Act 1976.