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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

In a recently published appeal before the Amsterdam Court of Appeal (Netherlands Patent Office Journal 2009, Number 20, pages 75-78), the court considered the implications of an exclusive distribution agreement on know-how protection.

On May 28 2009 the German Bundestag passed the Law on the simplification and modernisation of patent law, which introduces major changes to nullity proceedings in patent matters.

The European directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions 98/44/EC was transformed into national law on June 10 2005. The Austrian parliament has connected the establishment of a special monitoring committee to this transformation. This committee (the Biopatent Monitoring Committee) had the task of monitoring the impact of this transformation into Austrian law on

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

The case of Roma Drug vs Glaxo Smith Kline et al (GR no 149907, April 15 2009) is interesting because it retroactively applied the controversial Republic Act no 9502 or the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008. On August 14 2000, using a search warrant issued by the Regional Trial Court of Pampanga upon the complaint of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Roma Drug store owned by Romeo Rodriguez was raided by a team composed of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) operatives and inspectors of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD).

One of the cornerstones of the copyright system is the idea/expression dichotomy, which sets forth that only the original expression of ideas is to be protected, rather than the ideas themselves. This principle poses important challenges for the creative industries, since the distinction between an idea and the expression of that idea is sometimes unclear.

The Court of Appeal has unanimously upheld an appeal by McCurry Restaurant (KL), allowing McCurry to use the prefix Mc in the name of its restaurant. In this case, McDonald's Corporation's claim against McCurry at the High Court was premised on the fact that McCurry is liable for passing-off for using the prefix Mc in its name.

The first search reports carried out by the European Patent Office (EPO) on Italian national patent applications are finally reaching the applicants. Applicants may either entrust an agent to go to the Italian Patent and Trade Mark Office (PTO) to collect the documents (and, in so doing, relieve the PTO of some of its workload as it is being flooded by hundreds of searches coming in from the EPO), or wait for the PTO to send the searches by registered mail. It seems, therefore, that for the time being the PTO has set aside the option of transmitting the searches online.

As a measure to help tourism businesses in Croatia to successfully address the financial crisis, the Croatian government adopted an action plan by which it proposed a 50% reduction in the royalty fee paid to copyright owners for public performance of their copyrighted musical works. Apparently those members of the government responsible for the plan believe that the reduction of copyright royalties will benefit hotel/restaurant businesses, which in past years have complained about the need to pay royalties for public performances of copyrighted works.