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If you invest in research or creativity, IP laws allow you to retain your rights and charge customers whatever you think those rights are worth. But, says Emma Barraclough, there is another way: more and more businesses are finding that giving assets away for free can make economic sense

Peter Ollier, Hong Kong

Shahnaz Mahmud, New York

The Supreme Court of the Czech Republic as a court of third instance has confirmed the decision of the Regional Court in Ostrava and High Court of Appeal in Olomouc that it was a question of unfair competition if a competitor (in this case the defendant) used for marking arms a denomination consisting of the letters CZ completed by a number or another denomination, which the plaintiff had previously used for marking arms in the course of his business activity.

Emma Barraclough, London

Following the enactment of the Austrian Utility Model in 1994, not much guidance was given by the courts with regard to the level of inventiveness required to meet the statutory requirement of "inventive step". According to the considerations given by the legislator and the prevailing opinion in academic writing, a lower quantity of inventiveness compared to patent law was considered sufficient for the registration of valid utility models in Austria.

When Argentina joined the TRIPs Agreement in 1995, the Patent Law was modified to include the minimum standards. One of the most important changes was the term for which patent protection would be available for inventions in Argentina. The former Patent Law 111 established that patent protection was for 15 years from the granting date. Under this system, the prosecution delays of the Patent Office did not matter very much because they did not affect the effective life of the patent. But when Argentina adapted its regulations to TRIPs standards in 1995, and Argentina's Patent Law 24,481 was enacted, the situation changed completely, and the term of patents was set at 20 years counted from the date of filing of the application.

Entitlement disputes under the UK Patents Act have recently undergone something of a revival with several cases reaching the courts. Interestingly though, Patent Office figures reveal that the number of entitlement disputes filed before the Patent Office has remained steady over recent years as has the number of cases referred from the Patent Office to the UK courts. Why then is everyone discussing entitlement disputes under UK law?

In an extract from their book Little Blues: How to Build a Culture of Intellectual Property Within a Small Technology Company, André Carter and Raymond Millien examine how a small business with IP rights can also nurture an IP culture

Ian Finch and David Marriott of James & Wells laud New Zealand's virtues as a test market for IP litigation cases, or to test the strength of patents and trade marks