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On December 3 2007, the Bureau of Legal Affairs (BLA), the adjudication bureau of the Intellectual Property Office (IPPhil) presented to a public hearing proposed amendments to the rules and regulations on administrative complaints for violation of intellectual property laws. The objective of the amendments is to speed up the prosecution by the BLA of IP violation cases, for example, infringement, unfair competition, false designation of origin, false or fraudulent declaration.

A judicial storm swept through the streets of Moscow and almost buried Venezia under the waves of attacks by a Russian owner of a similar trade mark. The story began when a Russian entrepreneur registered the trade mark Venezi in many classes including classes 41 and 43 covering restaurants. The trade mark was registered in block letters in Cyrillics in black and white. That was back in 2002. Years later another entrepreneur opened a restaurant under the name of Viaggio Italiano Venezia in the centre of Moscow. The owner of the trade mark filed a suit in court demanding the restaurateur to remove the confusingly similar designation from the signboard, menu, bills, etc. The court of first instance rejected the claims of the trade mark owner, in part because the plaintiff did not introduce on the market goods labelled with the Venezi trade mark that would fall under classes 41 and 43.

On January 15 the first cooperation protocol was signed between the High Commissioner's Office for the fight against counterfeits and the Italian National Centre for Informatics in Public Administration (CNIPA), to give further impetus to the national anti-counterfeiting strategies.

For many years, the Mexican Trade Mark Office (MTO) has been accepting letters of consent from the owners of prior trade mark registrations in order to overcome a reference cited as anticipation in the prosecution of a trade mark application that can be considered as similar or even identical.

The Irish High Court has recently given a landmark decision concerning Council Regulation (EC) 6/2002 (the Regulation) which protects Community design rights. This decision generated much interest in Ireland as there is little case law here concerning unregistered design rights and the interpretation of the Regulation.

Fame isn't all its cracked up to be. Just try to register a trade mark in Canada comprised of or incorporating the name of an individual deemed to be "famous".

The Community trade mark will soon mark its 12th anniversary. Since it was launched, the EU has seen many changes - and some of them pose challenges for the CTM system. James Nurton reports

Trade mark offices and legislators in the Asia-Pacific region are moving beyond traditional trade marks, but progress is slow. Peter Ollier explains how far they have got

Austria TRADE MARK PROSECUTION Tier 1 Sonn & Partner Tier 2 Patentanwälte Puchberger, Berger & Partner Schönherr Rechtsanwälte Torggler & Hofinger Wiltschek Rechtsanwälte Tier 3 Barger, Piso & Partner Beer & Partner Patentanwalt Dr Thomas M Haffner Patentanwälte Schütz und Partner

Egypt TRADE MARK PROSECUTION Tier 1 Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) Hoda Abdel Hadi & Partners Tier 2 Youssef Hafez Law Office Hoda A Serageldin SABA