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• WTO report deals blow to US The WTO's panel report in the US-China IP case has confirmed that the USTR lost on the key issue of whether China's thresholds for criminal IP enforcement are too high. The 147-page report, published on January 26, was hailed by Acting US Trade Representative Peter Allegier as "an important victory" but he admitted disappointment over the section on China's criminal enforcement. The findings of the report are the same as those of a preliminary report that was leaked last October.

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has issued new guidance on the patentability of computer programs. This follows the Court of Appeal's rejection of the UKIPO's appeal in the recent Symbian case and confirmation that there will be no further appeal to the House of Lords. The key statement in the new guidance is that the Symbian case confirms "that the Aerotel/Macrossan test is intended to be in substance the same test as that relied on in the prior UK case law". Previously, the UKIPO had taken what was arguably a more restrictive approach to the application of the Aerotel test in that identification of a "technical contribution" was treated as only a check to confirm that a computer-implemented invention was patentable once it had passed the other stages of the assessment set out in the Aerotel case (see UKIPO Practice Notice dated November 2 2006).

IP-related disputes in Taiwan used to be dealt with using a two-pronged resolution mechanism: the Court heard an infringement litigation action, but an invalidation proceeding, if initiated by the defendant as a counter measure, was handled by the Intellectual Property Office. Furthermore, in a civil litigation action related to patent infringement, if an invalidation proceeding was initiated, the litigation action would be suspended pending a final decision on the invalidation proceeding. In such cases, the infringement litigation action was often delayed by the invalidation proceeding, and thus, the damage suffered by any truly injured party could not be addressed quickly.

Parallel imports have been a burning issue for Russian importers for the past year. At different times in the past, several laws were adopted (Trade Mark Law, Code of Administrative Offences, Customs Code) that completed the legislative structure dealing with parallel imports. And Russian Customs, pressed by the government for better enforcement at the border, became exceptionally active in identifying parallel goods. So, the beginning of last year saw an avalanche of inquiries from Customs asking trade mark owners for their opinion with regard to parallel import consignments.

As a party to the TRIPs Agreement, Singapore accepted the latest amendments to the TRIPS Agreement on September 28 2007 and recently revised the Patents Act to reflect these amendments. With effect from December 1 2008, specific provisions such as sections 2, 56, 60, 62 and 66 of the Patents Act, allow the Singapore Government or any third party authorised by the Government to import any health products or to do anything in relation to the imported health products in times of a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency.

As a result of the enactment of the Free Trade Agreement between Peru and the US on January 15, 2009, Legislative Decree No 1075, which approves complementary dispositions to Decision 486 of the Andean Community, also came into force.

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand is implementing some changes to patent practice in New Zealand that are worthy of mention.

Very recently (February 11 2009), the infringement court of The Hague issued its decision in Novartis v Johnson & Johnson (J&J) on the infringement of European patent EP 0 819 258 owned by Novartis. Some remarkable issues have been decided in this case.

The Mexican IP authorities have implemented new procedures for renewing trade mark applications that have been pending for ten years.