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James Nurton, London

The Verified Rights Owner Programme (VeRO) is eBay's attempt to win over disgruntled rights owners. It provides them with an alternative to suing eBay when they find allegedly infringing goods offered for sale or auction on its site. Participants in the VeRO programme instead send eBay a Notice of Infringement form, specifying the allegedly infringing listing and identifying the trade mark, copyright, patent or registered design right which is said to be infringed. eBay will then remove the offending listing. So far so good for the rights owners. Unfortunately for them however a recent decision has held that such Notices of Infringement can constitute groundless threats of infringement. This can leave rights owners open to injunction applications to restrain such threats and claims for damages. Rights owners should therefore think carefully before making use of the VeRO programme.

It is not sufficient only to register a trade mark in Turkey but also use it in the Turkish market.

Russia is becoming an attractive market niche for many a businessman. Some build factories and plants, others register trade marks and grant licences. The more wary begin their penetration into the Russian market by testing the waters and simply appoint agents to sell their products. But we live in a balanced world: if you save on the one side you inevitably lose on the other.

The Commercial Court of Lisbon, the main Portuguese court dealing with patent matters, has recently handed down a decision, backed up after appeal by the Appeal Court of Lisbon, that is a serious warning about the quality of translations filed for the validation of European patents as a literal interpretation of bad translated claims can affect the scope of the protection.

In Sweden, universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) are classed as government agencies, and their main task as stipulated by law is to contribute to research and education. Like all Swedish government agencies, HEIs must abide by the Principle of Public Access to Official Documents. The conflict of interest between, on one hand, the need for increased commercialization of research results and therefore keeping certain results confidential to fulfil the novelty requirement in patent law and, on the other hand, the ambition to promote free research, and the publication of research results becomes obvious. How can this conflict be resolved?

Source codes of open source software are developed and distributed through licences known as the general public licence (GPL). However, the trade marks of the software developers are not distributed along with these source codes. While distributors' brands and trade marks belong to them, the underlying source code belongs to the open source community. Therefore, what is being sold or distributed here is just the source code and not the trade mark.

In a recent appeal case, Gopal Glass Works Ltd v AC of Patents & Designs Ors 2006 (33) PTC 434 (cal), Kolkata High Court examined the grounds for cancelling a registered design.

Software is invading every field of business, including telecommunications, industrial equipment, cars and audio-video media The development of new products results in the integration of computer programs that correspond to features, some of them widespread and others more original.

The Municipal Court in Prague stated in Decision 9Ca 68/2003-36 that use of a trade mark includes not only direct use of a mark through placing on products or packaging, but also indirect use in connection with those products or services, for example on accompanying documents or advertising. In this decision the Municipal Court refused an action against the decision of the President of the Industrial Property Office concerning the cancellation of a trade mark due to non-use.