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This part of the most comprehensive annual study of leading IP firms looks at trade mark practice in Africa and the Middle East

Social media can seem like a nightmare for the spread of trade mark infringement. But Simon Crompton argues they can help protect and enforce your brand

David Gooder, chief trade mark counsel at Jack Daniel's Properties, gives his top five tips on interacting with social media

A recent decision by the British Columbia Court of Appeal has clarified what some had viewed as permission by the trial division to use third-party marks in keyword advertising

A majority of 23 of the EU's 27 member states are now moving forward to implement a unitary EU patent by way of an enhanced cooperation. The four member states who have decided not to participate in the enhanced cooperation are Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and Cyprus. Spain and Italy have in particular opposed the EU patent adopting a language regime that excludes their respective languages.

Plans to develop a unitary patent system for the European Union have been thwarted by linguistic and legal difficulties. The main objectives of the unitary system are reduction of costs for obtaining and enforcing patents and lifting of legal uncertainties, by creating a unitary patent and a European Patents Court under a Unified Patent Litigation System (UPLS). Currently, European patents have to be validated in each country and are enforced by national law. The high translation costs for validating patents as well as the expensive and often unpredictable litigation outcome in the different member states – sometimes reaching conflicting verdicts in identical cases – have often been cited as major weak points of the system.

On the basis of its Red Bull – and Bull – marks for alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and Class 3 goods like perfumes, the firm behind Red Bull has requested cancellation of the word mark Pitbull and the device showing in the centre the head of a pit-bull terrier with the word Pitbull above it and below the words "get the power". These marks were registered for identical goods, so there was no controversy about this point.

New Decree 119/2010/ND-CP (Decree 119) on amendment of some articles of Decree 105/2006/ND-CP (Decree 105) on protection of IP rights in Vietnam was promulgated by the Vietnam Government on December 30 2010, and becomes effective as of February 20 2011. Decree 105 is one of the most important legal instruments on protection and enforcement of IP rights in Vietnam.

In the US, trade mark owners typically have two options to prevent the misuse of their marks as part of domain names, namely filing a complaint pursuant to the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP) and seeking relief pursuant to the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).

In many countries IP, law affords separate protection to functional and non-functional aspects of a newly developed product. While novelty in function (a new invention) is covered by patent law, newness in aesthetics and other superficial features are protected by design law. However, in Thailand, IP protection for functional and design aspects is not mutually exclusive. Both inventions and designs are protected under the same patent law (Patent Act BE 2522(1979)). Consequently, many companies have ended up applying for design protection even when product changes are purely functional in nature and hence more applicable to invention patents than design patents. Sometimes these cases are driven primarily by concerns relating to cost, time (to bypass the substantive examination of an invention patent) or just plain strategy to monopolise a particular design.