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

In many inventions relating to telecommunications or computers, the underlying novel idea resides in the modification of a signal to achieve some useful purpose. An example can be found in US patent application 09/211,928, which relates to the introduction of watermarks into signals to help protect media against unauthorized copying. Consistent with the general desirability of protecting an invention in its most basic form without limitation to any specific apparatus or method of implementation, the applicants sought to protect their underlying invention in the form of a claim directed to a signal, wherein the body of the claim defined the novel and useful characteristics of the signal. The US Federal Circuit (In re Nuijten, 84 USPQ 2d 1495), with a dissenting opinion, held that such a claim was not a "process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter", as required by US law, and as such was non-statutory subject matter.

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.

Caroline de Mareüil-Villette of Cabinet Plasseraud outlines how to determine the value of intellectual property and explains why companies should do it

The Board of Appeal of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) recently handed down a decision criticizing ARIPO's handling of a trade mark application (In the matter of Trade Mark Application No AP/M/2005/000303 Fones 4 U in the name of Langton Nyatsambo).

Liu, Shen & Associates, Beijing

The recent High Court ruling in Monsanto Technology LLC v Cargill International SA & Another [2007] EWHC 2257 shows how the UK courts construe patent claims covering genetic material and genetic sequences.

The first high-speed railway constructed by Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC) under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model in Taiwan rolled into service in 2006. The high-speed train, called 700T in Taiwan, was built based upon the design of the locomotive used by the Japanese high-speed rail system, only with the stripes extending along both sides of the locomotive altered from pure blue to juxtaposed orange and black.

One of the most widely used instruments for the protection of intellectual property is the Paris Convention, which, is one of the oldest IP agreements (it was signed in Brussels on March 20 1883). This Convention brings together almost every country in the world and is used by many IP rights owners to get recognition of their rights in different countries from those where they were obtained or declared.

Colombia made an alcoholic move to Russia. To secure its position a trade mark application for rum was filed Ron Viejo de Caldas (application 2004723531 with priority date of October 14 2004). The application was rejected. The examiner stated in the rejection that the designation did not have distinguishing capability because it consisted only of non-protectable elements characterizing the goods. Indeed, Ron (rum) points to the name of the product, Viejo is old and de Caldas means from the province of Caldas