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Greg Gurr and Simon Potter of Spruson & Ferguson look at recent court decisions on patent ownership, entitlement, contributory infringement and innovative step

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Philip Noonan, director-general of IP Australia, talks to Peter Ollier about planned reforms to the country's IP system, patent harmonisation and how the Office is coping with the credit crunch

In the first ever case of its kind, on February11 the Patents Court ordered the payment of £1.5 million ($2.1 million) in "employee compensation" to two former employees of GE Healthcare who were inventors of chemical complexes which form the basis of GE Healthcare's blockbuster heart imaging product Myoview. The claim was made under little-used provisions of the Patents Act 1977 which entitle employees named as inventors on patents to seek compensation if the patent has been of "outstanding benefit" to the employer. In this case the Court found that this hurdle had been overcome, assessed the monetary value of the patents to GE Healthcare at £50 million and awarded the inventors a 3% share of that benefit.

Brands often consist of multiple word elements in which one component is a uniquely coined term (as it relates to the goods or services sold under the mark) and the other component is a common descriptive term. When a trade mark dispute arises between two parties, one issue that US trade mark tribunals must deal with in determining whether or not there is a likelihood of confusion between two marks is the effect that any descriptive components of the marks may have.

In 2009, Vietnam will make some key amendments to its IP Law. Some of the amendments are aimed at correcting inconsistencies in the law, while others are designed to bring articles into compliance with Vietnam's international commitments on IP protection. Highlights include:

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office has released a draft of the revised Patent Law in which significant amendments have been introduced. These include introducing the doctrine of international exhaustion of patent rights with clear stipulations set out on how the doctrine applies to biological material and plant related patents. Also, the right conferred by an invention patent no longer applies when the practice of the invention by others is for research and experimental purposes necessitated by applying for regulatory approval of a drug.

There is a need for users of social network websites to realise the importance of protecting their uploaded contents. The invasion of their privacy can stem from the social network providers attempting to withdraw users' rights to utilize their uploaded contents or from unauthorised persons exploiting the contents. In the United Arab Emirates, there are laws to protect the right to privacy accorded to individuals.

Copyright protection in New Zealand is governed by the Copyright Act 1994. The New Zealand Government recently passed a number of controversial amendments to this Act in an effort to bring it up to speed with emerging advances in digital technology and to deal with the massive problem of copyright infringement on the internet.

The IP High Court has reversed a Tokyo District Court decision in a groundbreaking decision for Japanese broadcasters. The case pitted KK Digital Kaden against the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) and ten other broadcasting companies, plaintiffs-respondents.