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Chinese patent practice is very different from that of the EU, US, or Japan. Amy Feng of Liu, Shen & Associates urges firms to consider it when patenting second medical indications In China

Two IP owners trying to assert their rights by dispatching letters to competitors found the Australian courts unsympathetic. Charles Tansey of Shelston IP explains why

Eklavya Gupte, Berlin

Carlos O Mitelman and Daniel R Zuccherino of Obligado & Cia take issue with Argentina’s system for patenting medicinal innovations

Eklavya Gupte, London

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When the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) granted compulsory licences for five CD-R patents owned by Philips to Gigastorage (a small local manufacturer of CD-Rs) in July 2004, it might not have foreseen the amount of international attention the decision would draw. TIPO's decision, confirmed on appeal, was based on Article 76.1 of the current Patent Act, which stipulates that in addition to coping with national emergencies and non-profit-seeking use of a patent for enhancement of public welfare, a compulsory licence, if used predominantly for the supply of the domestic market, may be granted to an applicant who has offered reasonable terms and conditions to a patentee but has failed to reach an agreement with the patentee within a considerable period of time.

Although the law used to enable Customs to enforce IP rights in Mexico, this year has seen a major advance in the fight against counterfeiters and pirates. In January and following intense work by federal enforcement authorities and IP owners, the brand new early alert anti-counterfeit system was initiated. The first alerts have so far led to 16 seizures of counterfeits.

Back in the 19th century the countries signing the Paris Convention agreed that designations contradicting morals or capable of insulting religious feelings should not be registered as trade marks. It is very rare if ever that people apply for obscene trade marks. It may happen that a word trade mark in one country has a neutral meaning but while being pronounced and heard by people in another country has quite a different meaning. In that case, there is a question.