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Fasten your seatbelts. John M Carson, Alan Kessler and Hugh Dunlop explain how the PPH works in practice, and ask which applicants will most benefit from it

Whether the unauthorised use of a trade mark as a keyword or adword by internet search engines such as Google to cause the appearance of an advertisement for others' goods or services, either directly or by way of a link to a home page, is use of a trade mark that could be forbidden by trade mark law is one of the hottest topics of this year.

IP assets are often overlooked in insolvency situations. But Eifion Morris and Lucy Harrold say insolvency practitioners, lenders and business partners should all pay more attention

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.

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.

In recent years the Italian Patent and Trade Mark Office has seen an increase in efficiency mainly due to a reorganisation of the work process and the introduction of online filing systems.

Countries trying to tackle the menace of counterfeit drugs are taking various steps to check the entry of unauthorised drugs. However one problem arising from this is that counterfeit drugs are defined differently in various jurisdictions. Many countries consider products that are not registered there as being counterfeit.

The first term of registration of a trade mark in China is 10 years counting from the date of expiry of the three-month opposition period. For a trade mark application subject to opposition, it usually takes a few years for a decision to be rendered by the China Trade Mark Office (CTMO) and a longer period if the decision is subject to review by the Trademark Review and Adjudication Board (TRAB), and further appeal to the court. By the time TRAB or a court issues a decision allowing registration of the trade mark in issue, its first term of registration may have already expired.

Top copyright firms ranked in 19 jurisdictions. Plus: Eileen McDermott explores some areas in which the internet has highlighted a need for change in copyright law