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Children mean big business in the world of toys, books and clothes merchandising. Ingrid Hering visited the headquarters of Fox Kids Europe to investigate how its licensing strategy works

Under 35 USC 251, a US patent can be reissued when, through error without any deceptive intention, the patent is deemed wholly or partially inoperative or invalid because the patentee claimed less than he had a right to claim in the patent. Reissues that broaden the scope of the original claims may be granted only if sought within two years of the issue date of the patent.

The insurance industry has dragged its feet over IP risk management but things are changing rapidly, explains Robert Chase

The "rule of the essence" marked the beginning of the doctrine of equivalents in Dutch legislation. Marc AA van Wijngaarden, of Arnold + Siedsma in The Hague, traces its development

? Brussels: European industry reacted angrily at the failure by European ministers to agree on a judicial format for the proposed community patent, claiming that companies may instead choose to work on improving the existing patent framework.

Australia: Almost 40% of Australian businesses are using pirated software, according to a Dimension Data Australia survey reported in The Australian newspaper, with IT managers blaming the problem on complex licensing programmes and a lack of internal monitoring. China: Sina.com, said to be China's leading internet content provider, has been ordered to pay Qian Kun, a writer, Rmb2,000 ($240) for publishing work Qian had done exclusively for Sohu.com, Sina's biggest rival, according to China Daily. Beijing No 1 Intermediate Court also ordered Sina.com to carry apologies to the writer on its sports channel for seven days. China: In what is thought to be an unprecedented move, authorities will allow US prosecutors to come to Beijing to question witnesses about the theft of Lucent Technologies software. The US lawyers are coming to the Chinese capital to interview staff from Datang Telecom Technology. In June 2001, three Chinese citizens, two of whom worked at Lucent's headquarters in New Jersey, were charged with stealing trade secrets from Lucent with the intent of using Datang to market a product based on the secrets. China: The Supreme People's Court has ruled that a trade mark owner can be prosecuted in a product liability action. The Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court asked the higher court to rule on the issue after it came up in a case concerning General Motors, the US car company, and two of its subsidiaries. The ruling came into force on July 28. Japan: The Office for Promotion of Justice System Reform is to study a proposal to exclude the public from court hearings on patents and other IP rights to prevent important business secrets from being revealed, according to Kyodo News Service. Japan: Sony has developed Open MG X, a new digital copyright management and distribution technology, which it says will stop the unauthorized copying of entertainment files, such as music and films, that are distributed over the internet and also enable content distributors to set hours and number of times for replaying such files. Thailand: The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has made its first raid in Thailand on a website it believes was selling pirated software, music, movies and pornography. The Economic Crime Investigations Division of the Thai Police carried out the raid on SmileThailand.com with the help of BSA investigators. The operator of the website was said to be selling CDs for Bt150 ($3.57).

George W Bush The US government has moved to make generic drugs more widely available. In an announcement on October 22, President George W Bush said he would adopt key recommendations made by the FTC in its report into competition in the industry.

James Nurton, London

Email: info@plass.com

Law no. 202 on the assurance of the abidance by the intellectual property rights during Customs operations was adopted at the end of 2000 and this was followed by the Methodological Norms for the enforcement of Law no 202/2000 on March 8 2001.