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Our earlier reports have covered the injunction sought by Nestlé based on trade mark law with the Court of Commerce of St Gaul against the sale of Nespresso-compatible coffee capsules by the Swiss discounter Denner. Another action has been brought forward by Nestlé with the Court of Commerce of Zurich in this regard, but based on two patents from its portfolio for the Nespresso coffee capsule system. The subject matter of the two patents is a coffee extraction method and the capsule containing coffee as a closed package. The Zurich court found no patent infringement for both patents and denied the injunction. For the method patent the court considered that the coffee machines by which the extraction method is performed by the buyers of the machines had been brought on the market with the consent of Nestlé and thus the use of the extraction method was a lawful act performed by the buyers of the machines. Accordingly, the Court found that there can be no contributory infringement of Denner by the sale of coffee capsules to be used in such a lawful use of the machines. This conforms to Swiss law and practice regarding contributory infringement. For the patent on a coffee capsule the Court found that the Denner capsules, which are not fully closed but have holes, do not fall within the scope of the patent since these capsules do not provide optimum conservation and hygiene and a good reproducibility of the extraction. The Court considered that the Denner capsules may lose ground coffee through the holes so that the amount of coffee for the extraction may not be constant for each capsule. The Denner capsules are sold in air-tight sachets but the Court found it had not been made credible that these sachets have the same technical effect as the patented closed capsules.

It is hard to imagine that anyone would attempt to cancel the Teflon trade mark in Cyrillic (TEOJIOH) as not being used on the Russian market. But someone did. This was Pilot Ltd, a large Russian trading company. It was selling kitchenware and filed a cancellation action against the trade mark TEOJIOH (registration number 140510) with the Russian Chamber of Patent Disputes.

The Supreme Administrative Court, by virtue of a judgment of January 18 2011 (case II GSK 56/10), dismissed a cassation complaint against a judgment of the District Administrative Court in Warsaw. That case resulted from a complaint filed by Novartis against a decision of the Polish Patent Office on dismissal of an opposition in respect of a trade mark registration in the name of Farmaceutyczna Spoldzielnia Pracy Galena. The judgment is final and valid.

In a show of sympathy to Japanese IP rights holders whose activities may have been disrupted by the calamities which visited Japan starting March 11 2011, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) issued Office Order 53, series of 2011 entitled Accomodations for Patent and Trademark Applicants, Owners and Agents Affected by the Calamity in Japan, which was published on April 2 2011 and took effect on the same day. Patent filings in the Philippines from Japan are the second largest, after the US, hence the decision of the IPOPHL to be more liberal and promote goodwill.

The enforcement of registered trade marks in Mexico is constantly evolving. No more than three years ago Mexican Customs set up a department to alert IP owners of shipments of potential counterfeits. Now, in 2011, the Customs Authority is finalising the first steps to run a project with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) that merges the database of registered trade marks with that of Customs to create an intelligence tool to be used by customs officials in the review of goods imported into the country or in transit to other countries in the Americas.

The year began with a judgment over a patent law dispute involving the Tai family of Malaysia (Soon Seng Palm Oil Mill (Gemas) Sdn Bhd and others v Jang Kim Luang @ Yeo Kim Luang and others). The action revolves around a process patent for "the extraction of intrinsic fibers from waste material left behind after palm oil extraction. The intrinsic fibres of the empty fruits are recycled to create medium density fibre wood boards and mulching mats".

As from the beginning of March 2011, the Italian Patent Office (IPO) has started issuing its first examination reports on Italian patent applications not claiming a foreign priority.

In Israel, IP issues are heard by one of six District Courts and are appealable to the Supreme Court. Recent decisions are worrying, not so much because the verdicts are wrong, but because the judges displayed an ignorance of IP Law.

The protection of a partial industrial design involves the protection of a specific part of a design that is considered novel and applied to a product: automobile components for example, like front or rear combination lamps, or the bumper.

Finally, on March 25 2011, the Indian Patent Office (IPO) released the final version of the Manual of Patent Practice and Procedure (MPPP).