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In SmithKline Beecham v Generics (UK) Ltd (Jacob J Patents Court; October 23 2001), the Court injuncted Generics (UK) Ltd until trial (now fixed for March 2002) from launching its paroxetine pharmaceutical in the UK. Paroxetine is an active ingredient in some pharmaceuticals for treating depression. SmithKline Beecham's UK patent 2 297 550 covered only particular forms of paroxetine hydrochloride anyhdrate. Generics denied that its form of paroxetine fell within the patent and attacked validity too, but was nevertheless injuncted, pending trial.

Latin America has placed its foot firmly forward in defining the new frontiers of what can be registered as a trade mark. Ingrid Hering reports

Johannes Ahme A new cost law is under preparation which, besides introducing the conversion to the euro, integrates the regulations regarding all costs and fees of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office and the Federal Patent Court into a single cost act. Thus, essentially all the rules regarding payment of fees are removed from the patent act, trade mark act, utility model act, design model act etc and integrated into a single common cost act. The basic rule of this new cost act is that fees for an application, a request, an opposition, or an appeal become due at the moment they are filed. The Patent Office or Federal Patent Court will start to work on the particular application, request etc only once the fees have been paid. If the fees are not paid within three months after becoming due, the application, request etc is deemed to be withdrawn. The particular fees and their amounts are listed in an attachment to the cost act.

Q Todd Dickinson and Roger L May identify 10 pitfalls that lie in wait for licensees and licensors, and examine how to draft contracts to eliminate them

Interview: James Tierney, Boeing Ingrid Hering speaks to James Tierney, director of IP business, Boeing

Lawmakers in Indonesia have recognized the importance of patents to economic activity by providing for the speedy resolution of disputes under the new Patent Law. Cita Priapantja explains the most important features of the new legislation

While the Czech Republic, Hungary and Russia have all strengthened their IP laws, copyright and trade marks owners have major concerns about the lack of enforcement, reports James Nurton

Decision 486 of 2000, applicable since December 1 2000 in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, amplified the definition of products capable of being registered as industrial designs.

Legal changes and commercial needs have opened up new opportunities for trade mark owners in North America. Ingrid Hering reports on how the US and Canada are responding to demands for more novel trade marks

Mary Helen Sears In two relatively recent decisions, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has clarified and reaffirmed the well-established US legal doctrine of "first sale" and its corollaries regarding permissible repair and impermissible (and therefore infringing) reconstruction of patented articles and patented processes associated with them. Jazz Photo Corp v International Trade Commission, 59 USPQ 2d 1907 (Fed Cir August 21 2001) and Surfco Hawaii v Fin Control Systems Pty Ltd, 60 USPQ 2d 1056 (Fed Cir September 5 2001) both rest upon a fundamental of US personal property (or "chattel") law, whereby the purchaser within the United States of an article covered by a United States patent, or one that embodies a process covered by such a patent, has the same individual private property right to use and dispose of it as he or she enjoys with respect to a purchased article not covered by a viable US patent. These rights have been recognized by American courts since at least as early as the Supreme Court decision in Wilson v Simpson, 50 US (9 How) 109 (1850) and have been reiterated many times during the ensuing century and a half.