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François Gevers and Ludivine Coulon of Gevers have all the answers when it comes to applying for patents in Belgium

Yemen: The Republic of Yemen has acceded to the Paris Convention, which will enter into force in the country on February 15 2007.

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.

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 ECJ has failed to clear confusion over the Dutch approach to cross-border patent litigation. By Peter Hendrick and Bas Berghuis van Woortman of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

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

Shahnaz Mahmud, Rio de Janeiro

Emma Barraclough, London