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Five years after the entry into force of Community Regulation No 1383/03 relating to Customs control measures, it is now time to draw the initial conclusions, all positive, regarding its effectiveness. The European Commission has published, for the year 2008, data that confirm a significant increase in Customs activity:

The issue of divisional applications continues to keep the EPO busy on various levels. The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) has previously dealt extensively with the allowability of amendments to divisional applications in decisions G 1/05 and G 1/06, and a new set of rules, aimed at limiting the number of divisional applications, will enter into force in 2010. Despite the EPO's past efforts to clarify the procedural peculiarities of divisionals, a new question has now arisen, which the EBA is to consider in pending case G 1/09.

On October 1 2009, the Law on Simplification and Modernisation of the Patent Law will enter into force in Germany, and the amendments affect several German acts relating to intellectual property.

From Venkatesh Hariharan, corporate affairs director, Red Hat

The intersection between copyright in a pattern and design rights on the same has come for determination before the courts on many occasions. A recent Delhi High Court judgment has clarified the position, on an appeal filed by Microfibres against the order of the single judge. The single judge held that if the design is registered under the Designs Act, it would lose its copyright protection under the Copyright Act. When a design is registrable under the Designs Act but has not so been registered, it would continue to enjoy copyright protection under the Copyright Act so long as the threshold limit of its application on an article by an industrial process for more than 50 times is reached. But once that limit is crossed, it would lose its copyright protection under the Copyright Act.

The provisions of Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 29 2004 on the enforcement of IP rights were implemented in the Greek national law by law 3524/26.01.2007. This implementation was partial since only the relevant passages of the copyright law (law 2121/93) were specifically amended.

On June 22 2009, the Supreme People's Court of China made an announcement aimed at consolidating the jurisdiction of certain types of first instance IP appeal cases to the IP Tribunal of the Beijing no 1 Intermediate People's Court. This new decision came into effect on July 1 2009.

The Federal Court recently issued a decision in which the plaintiff in an infringement action had filed a disclaimer shortly before litigation. A disclaimer is a means by which a patentee states that he or she no longer wishes to claim a right over part or all of a claim because the claim as allowed is too broad by reason of mistake, accident, or inadvertence on the part of the patentee.

A monthly column devoted to IP curiosities and controversies, named in honour of John of Utynam - who received the world's first recorded patent in 1449

At a meeting in November, EU member states will debate OHIM proposals on the establishment of a cooperation fund to be used to improve trade mark systems in Europe. James Nurton answers your questions about what the fund is and how it will work