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When do licensees have independent standing to sue for infringement in the US? Jasper W Dockrey and Jonathan M Blanchard review how the courts have treated this question and provide some guidelines for licensees and licensors

During the past decades, the world has been observing the phenomenon of globalization. Large corporations have joined forces to multiply their profits or to avoid negative financial performance and new corporations have resulted from such joint ventures and mergers.

The growing importance of IP rights in Japan has led to frequent amendments to the corpus of Japanese IP laws. Such tweaking has however made it more difficult than ever to gain a grasp on which amendments are applicable to which patents. The following is a quick summary of the major amendments to the Japanese Patent Law made over the last 20 years.

Section 3 (1) of the 1994 German Trade Mark Act provides that "any signs, particularly words ... including colours and combinations of colours, which are capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings may be protected as trade marks." With this wording the 1994 statute exceeds the standards given by article 2 of the European Council Directive.

Sam Mamudi, New York

The first Section of the Constitutional Court (CC) has set aside the judgment of the Supreme Court (SC) which precluded Nike International from trading and commercialising, within the Spanish territory, textile goods under the name NIKE. The new judgment informs that a constitutional right was violated in the ruling of the Supreme Court.

Europe's fund of trade mark case law keeps on growing. Jeremy Phillips says that, while some interesting cases have been decided in the past year, there is much more excitement still to come

Stephen Whybrow, CMS Cameron McKenna, London

A trademark owner in the Netherlands has the right to lodge an application, in writing, with the the customs authorities requiring them to keep a watch for counterfeit goods. This is on the basis of EU regulation 3295/94 (December 22 1994) and EU regulation 1367/95 (June 16 1995) which both came into force in the Netherlands on July 1 1997. On the basis of this application, customs authorities are allowed to detain or to suspend the release of a suspicious consignment for a brief period, during which the trademark holder can initiate legal measures.

A trademark owner in the Netherlands has the right to lodge an application, in writing, with the the customs authorities requiring them to keep a watch for counterfeit goods. This is on the basis of EU regulation 3295/94 (December 22 1994) and EU regulation 1367/95 (June 16 1995) which both came into force in the Netherlands on July 1 1997. On the basis of this application, customs authorities are allowed to detain or to suspend the release of a suspicious consignment for a brief period, during which the trademark holder can initiate legal measures.