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An Amendment Bill to part of the Copyright Act was presented to Congress on March 10 2009. The aim of the amendment is to speed up and advance the circulation of digital content. The amendment is a response to various problems that relate to the exploitation of copyright works on the Internet.

The well-known carmaker Mazda has registered trade marks for the word Mazda and its logo, which are both famous trade marks, in Austria. A firm in the province of Lower Austria offers chip-tuning services for different types of cars. In chip-tuning, chips are built into the electronic command parts of the car to achieve a higher power output of the motor. However, chip tuning also leads to much higher wear, making original warranties and guarantees no longer valid. To advertise its services, the firm runs a website on which it lists the cars for which it offers the service. In doing so, it uses the word marks and the logos of the car manufacturers, among them the marks of Mazda. Mazda sued for trade mark infringement.

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.

Correspondents in Central America provide an overview of parallel imports and border measures in the DR/CAFTA region, which encompasses the United States of America, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica

In Taiwan, a registered trade mark is vulnerable to non-use cancellation if, without justifiable cause, use of the trade mark has not begun within three years of its registration or after a period of time, use of the trade mark has been discontinued for a period in excess of three years.

The sudden rise to fame of sprinter Usain Bolt has prompted debate in Jamaica over protecting celebrities' rights. Dianne Daley of Foga Daley examines what protection is available

Over the last few years, the courts have made it clear that obviousness-type double patenting applies in Canada and that divisional applications are vulnerable to such an attack. While there is no statutory protection in the case of enforced divisional applications, the Supreme Court of Canada has stated that patents granted on divisional applications "directed by the Patent Office" should not be open to attack by reason only of the original patent. For this reason, we generally recommend first including claims that an applicant may wish to file in a proposed voluntary divisional application in the parent application and awaiting a requisition from the examiner based on lack of unity of invention.

On March 3 2009 China Customs issued Decree no 183 to amend the existing Implementing Measures on the Regulations of Custom Protection of Intellectual Property promulgated by Customs on May 25 2004. These will come into force from July 1 2009.

From Ilya Kazi, partner, Mathys & Squire, London