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The end of the year 2007 saw a few interesting cases arise in French practice. Most of them related to internet situations but the classical comparison of signs has not been in rest.

Anand and Anand, New Delhi

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India's Patent Office has granted its first patent to an overseas company for an anti-AIDS drug

Domain name slamming is one of the latest internet scams. Nick Wood explains how IP owners can protect themselves from it

Simply because a trade mark owner is using their mark in the United States does not necessarily mean that the mark is eligible for registration in the US Patent and Trademark Office or that it would be prudent to make a filing for federal registration. Certain circumstances may exist which preempt the ability to register a mark on the USPTO's Principal Register or create a new risk associated with making such a filing.

On December 18 2007, the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City (RTC) under presiding Judge Reynaldo Daway found Avida Land Corporation (Avida) guilty of patent infringement and ordered it to pay inventor Edgardo Vasquez and his company Vasquez Building Systems Corporation (VBSC), P96.5 million ($2.37 million) in temperate, moral, exemplary damages and attorney's fees.

Costa Rica is and will be the last country to adhere to the DR-CAFTA Treaty. Its approval was subject to a popular referendum held at the end of 2007. At present, Congress is discussing the Treaty's corresponding implementation laws; these should be ready by March 2008.

The Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court recently ordered Generation 2000, a well-known Hong Kong fashion chain with over 400 franchised counters/outlets in China, as well as some of its franchisees in China, to pay Rmb20 million (around $2.8 million) to Zhao Hua for infringing his 2000 trade mark.

Last January, the Chilean Congress approved a bill establishing the National Institute of Industrial Property (INAPI). The draft law was sent to the Congress in 2000 on the initiative of the President, and aims to create a new autonomous agency in charge of the records and administration of industrial property in Chile, with a legal personality and its own assets. It is linked to the President of the Republic through the Ministry of the Economy. The chief of this entity will be a National Director, appointed directly by the President.