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As was reported in the March 2010 edition of Managing IP, amendments to the Copyright Act of Japan came into force in January 2010. This article will highlight the reform to the ruling system (Saitei Seido system) that allows use of a copyrighted work, the owner of which is uncertain, under Article 67 of the Copyright Act.

In a recent judgment from the Athens Full Bench Court of First Instance, Commercial Law Division, the court awarded €69,400 as patent infringement damages based on a royalty of 7.5%. The actual amount due is almost triple in view of interest due, dating back to the time the action was filed. By the same decision €6,000 was awarded as non-pecuniary damages.

As reported in Managing IP, the member states of the European Union agreed on the fundamentals of a future European and European Union Patent Court (EEUPC) in December of last year. The legislative process that will eventually lead to a statute on the creation of an EU patent and the EEUPC is followed with great interest and anxiousness by industry, attorneys, national judges and other specialists. In this respect, a number of Europe's most esteemed IP specialists were assembled in Strasbourg, France, on 16 and 17 April at a conference organised by the CEIPI Institute of Strasbourg University to analyse and debate the proposed setup for the EEUPC.

In India, original artistic works may sometimes fall under the Designs Act and the Copyrights Act. This overlap has been much debated and has come up for adjudication several times before the courts. In a recent case, the Copyright Board made some pertinent observations, especially with respect to artistic works produced by the application of an industrial process.

Almost two years after the formation of the independent Appeal Council, which has jurisdiction to review the decisions of the State Intellectual Property Office, Croatian rights holders are feeling the benefits of its shortened procedures and the specialised knowledge of its panelists.

Canada, like many other countries, has developed a relatively user-friendly electronic filing system for Canadian trade mark applicants. However, is the apparent ease with which an applicant can file and prosecute an application having unintended effects?

At the end of December 2010, the Austrian Parliament enacted a significant amendment to the Patent and Trade Mark Acts. The Innovation Protection Amendment 2010 abolished annuities for the first five years for all national patents and for the first three years for all utility models. Annuities for the later years have been slightly raised to compensate for this step. This amendment was effective from January 1 2010 so the January 2010 annuities are already affected.

Herman Van Rompuy, former Belgian prime minister, was recently elected to be the first permanent President of the European Council. He will soon be joined by his compatriots in leading the EU, as Belgium will take over the presidency on July 1 2010 for a period of six months.

Argentine law, Section 31 of Law No 11,723 relating to copyright and related rights, establishes that:

There have been a number of press reports recently on the issue of who owns the rights to the vuvuzela. In reviewing the fuss and bother around this quasi-musical instrument, it is not clear whether these parties are claiming rights to the trade mark vuvuzela, or the rights to the product itself. Be that as it may, it is instructive to look at the history of the vuvuzela.