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When contemplating the expansion of a brand into the United States marketplace, foreign trade mark owners often want to take advantage of the panache and elegance that American consumers typically associate with foreign locations. In order to maintain the commercial impression of a particular brand with a foreign manufacturer, brand owners often create a new composite mark that combines their brand with a geographic designation such as "Milan", "Paris" or "London". These geographic references may help establish consumer association for the brand and may help distinguish the brand from third party marks.

James Nurton, London

Emma Barraclough, London

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

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?

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.

The Croatian Academic and Research Network (CARNet), which administers top-level .hr domains, has introduced a new draft entitled Regulations Regarding the Organization of Top-Level "hr" Internet Domains and the Principles of Managing the Top-Level "hr" Domain. The new Draft will replace existing Regulations when it enters into force on January 1 2007.

With high levels of piracy across Asia, protecting IP in the region remains complicated. Satellite TV company Star began broadcasting in 1991 with five channels and now reaches 300 million viewers across the continent. Peter Ollier looks at how the company's in-house team protects its IP assets

As part of Iran's obligations under the Paris Convention, the Iranian courts have consistently discouraged hijacking of well-known trade marks. Even where the marks are not well known, the courts have consistently held in favour of marks that emerge from one of the Paris Convention countries and have prior international (outside Iran) use of the mark.