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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.

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.

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.

The decision by a New York court in Myriad earlier this year left applicants facing an uphill battle to patent gene sequences. Michael Gollin and Rae Fischer explain how IP owners in the biotech sector can maximise protection for their innovations

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.

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.

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.

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).

In the light of important recent and pending court rulings on patent eligibility, LiLan Ren of McKool Smith looks at the link between patents and economic development through history