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The Mexican Industrial Property Law (IPL) does not provide for oppositions to trade mark registration, which is generally understood as the ability of third parties to oppose the granting of a trade mark registration within a set period of time after the publication of the application.

Once perceived as a haven for pirates, Malaysia has responded with a positive salvo to eliminate this negative outlook. With a view to attracting and safeguarding local and foreign investment in the country, the authorities have been using various measures to eradicate this menace.

On January 4 2007, the Department of Agriculture (DA) issued the implementing rules and regulations of the Livestock and Poultry Feeds Act (RA 1556, amended by PD 7), governing the registration of feed establishments, animal feeds, feed ingredients, feed supplements, feed additives, base mixes, concentrates, special feed nutrient preparations and other feed products (Administrative Order No.12, Series of 2007). Some of the salient points are as follows:

Filing and maintenance fees have been reintroduced on Italian patents, utility models and designs as from January 1 2007. The amounts to be paid and the applicable rules have been determined by a decree which has just been published in the Official Gazette which entered into force on April 21 2007.

The US Supreme Court decision in MedImmune gave licensees the right to challenge a licensed patent while continuing to pay royalties. But those patent owners that are responding to the new challenge by redrafting their licences must pay close attention to EU competition rules, say Sangeeta Puran and David Fyfield

A monthly column devoted to IP curiosities and controversies, named in honour of John of Utynam – who received the world's first recorded patent in 1449

A new watchdog is being set up in France to regulate digital rights management systems and ensure that copyright owners and users follow the rules on copyright exceptions

The European Commission has finally published its blueprint for an EU-wide patent strategy

With the growth of the biotech industry and the maturing of the first breakthrough inventions, litigation over patents is becoming more frequent and spreading around the world. MIP has selected five important cases from the US, Australia, France and Germany that highlight some of the issues that have arisen in the past year. Emma Barraclough, James Nurton and Peter Ollier look at how the cases developed, and why they are significant for the industry

In my briefing last month, I explained that US patent litigation is governed by the American Rule pursuant to which the prevailing party is not automatically allowed to recover its attorney fees. Rule 54(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, however, states that "costs other than attorneys fees shall be allowed as of course to the prevailing party unless the court otherwise directs". The US Supreme Court has explained that Rule 54 does not provide "unrestrained discretion to tax costs to reimburse a winning litigant for every expense he has seen fit to incur in the conduct of his case" (Farmer v Arbian Am Oil Co, 379 US 227, 235 (1964)). Rather, federal courts are bound by 28 USC Section 1920, which expressly lists the kinds of expenses that a federal court may tax as costs, and the courts have stated that Section 1920 thereby imposes "rigid controls" on cost-shifting in federal courts ((Crawford Fitting Co v J T Gibbons, Inc, 482 US 437, 444 (1987)).