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International: Almost 5% more patent applications were filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty in 2007 than in the year before. For the fourth year running, the most notable growth rates came from countries in north-east Asia. The region, which includes Korea and Japan, accounted for 25.8% of all international applications under the PCT.

Latin America represents an increasingly attractive investment option for many IP owners. But how should they protect their rights there? Managing IP, Olivares & Cia, Baker & McKenzie Latin America and Obligado & Cia hosted a roundtable to discuss the issue

The full, unabridged, interviews with the candidates for the position of WIPO director-general, in alphabetical order

The current patent law in the Sultanate of Oman was introduced by Royal Decree number 82/2000, but due to logistical and administrative constraints, the Omani patent office only started accepting patent applications in December 2005, after the Ministry of Commerce published the official fees of patent applications in Oman.

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".