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In Thailand, registrars seeking to solve the problem of a mistakenly registered trade mark may call upon the solution in section 61 of the Thai Trade Mark Act, which permits the Board of Trade Marks to re-examine such marks. Based on this section, the Board conducts re-examinations on distinctiveness, dissimilarity, and morality grounds only when an authorised person, limited to either an interested person or a registrar, files a cancellation petition to the Board citing section 61. In the view of many registrars, section 61 provides a means of effectively revisiting decisions; nevertheless, the registrars, having already given their approval, rarely seek to use this solution. Recently, however, the Board rendered a decision in favour of the registrar's use of section 61 by withdrawing a registered trade mark which had been registered for more than five years.

Under current practice, after an allegedly infringing article or method is found to be non-infringing literally, a determination will generally be made to determine whether there is infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

Tøyen tannlegevakt (TT) – a dental clinic – registered its logo consisting of a red cross containing four white As and a representation of a tooth in 2007. When becoming aware of the mark, the Norwegian Red Cross ordered TT to cease use because the mark was easily confused with the Red Cross emblem. When TT refused, Red Cross filed a complaint.

A US applicant has an International Registration (IR) number 479405 for the American Eagle trade mark. He extended his registration to Russia in respect of part of the goods in class 25, specifically, to pantoufles, chaussures en general d'origine americaine.

The coming few years will bring a halt to the dominance of big pharmaceutical companies, which are exposed to patents that will expire on more than $80 billion-worth of blockbuster drugs. A famous example is the patent expiry of Eli Lilly's anti-depressant drug, Prozac, which reportedly lost 73% of market share within two weeks of generic launch. Similarly, Pfizer's anti-depressant Zoloft, which lost patent exclusivity, showed a decline in revenues to $531 million in 2007, compared to $3.3 billion in 2005. However, Pfizer's bigger concern in the near future is when the patent for other famous drugs such as Lipitor and Viagra will expire.

In a recently issued decision, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had to decide whether decisions of the European Patent Office (EPO) or courts of other European Patent Convention (EPC) member states are binding on German patent courts (Decision of April 15 2010, Xa ZB 10/09 – Walzenformgebungsmaschine).

The Federal Court of Australia recently found a company director personally liable for patent infringement. In Inverness Medical Switzerland GmbH v MDS Diagnostics Pty Limited [2010] FCA 108, Inverness was the owner of a number of patents in the field of pregnancy testing and sued both the company MDS and its director, Dr Appanna, a family doctor in Auckland. Inverness argued that the doctor was a joint tortfeasor in directing MDS in the infringement.

On July 1 2010 the Austrian Patent Office offers opposition procedures in addition to the possibility of cancellation proceedings. In doing so, Austria now has all the procedures available which are internationally standard in trade mark grant procedures.

Anti-counterfeiting in East Africa is a topic in vogue, highlighted by the Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Act (Number 13 of 2008) and the interlocutory ruling of Justice Mwendoh, dated April 23 2010 in Kenya High Court Petition Number 409/2009 Ochieng', Atieno & Munyi v Attorney General. Reading Ochieng's case revived 1960s memories of a truckload of fake Aspro drugs destroyed by order of the then Supreme Court of Kenya, and the thoughts that:

Over the past two years the Venezuelan patent system has adopted important legislative changes, which have forced doctrine and jurisprudence to review the current patent legal framework, as well as the mandatory nature of the rules developed in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs). The legislative changes have been made to ensure that inventors have appropriate protection for their inventions in accordance with international standards.