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US golf equipment manufacturer Acushnet, which owns the Titleist trade mark in Malaysia, has managed to obtain summary judgment against a local company in the case Acushnet Company v Metro Golf Manufacturing Sdn Bhd [2006] 7 CLJ 557.

Australia PATENT PROSECUTION Tier 1 Davies Collison Cave Griffith Hack Phillips Ormonde & Fitzpatrick Spruson & Ferguson Tier 2 F B Rice & Co Shelston IP Watermark Tier 3 Blake Dawson Waldron Freehills Madderns Wray & Associates Tier 4 Allens Arthur Robinson Callinan Lawrie Cullen & Co Halford & Co Mallesons Stephen Jacques Pizzeys

Following the rapid rise of patenting by Japanese inventors in the second half of the twentieth century, a second-wave of Asian innovation is being led by companies in China, India and South Korea. But are these businesses protecting their IP rights overseas? Peter Ollier looks at the trends

Emma Barraclough, London

Peter Ollier, Hong Kong

Companies spend a lot of money buying and selling usage rights to software and related services. As such, various types of software licensing agreements are becoming ever more important for both IT companies and their customers. Despite the fact that contract amounts are often relatively large in relation to the company's other finances and that the product to be delivered often has an activity-critical function for the customer, it is extremely common that licensing agreements and the associated documentation leave much to be desired with respect to legibility, appropriate adjustments and so forth. This is especially the case when the software licensing agreements are not entirely standardized in their form, much less business-specific.

New Zealand for the most part has rather antiquated intellectual property legislation. The Trade Marks Act was in force for nearly 50 years before being replaced in 2002 and the Patents Act has been in force for more than 50 years. In a flurry of activity, two IP-related pieces of legislation were passed in late 2006 and there are several other draft bills being considered.

Our firm has virtually abandoned filing applications on paper. We feel that online filing is safer than paper filing, provided that some sensible precautions are taken.

On January 8 2007, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a measure which aims to strengthen the value of Chinese brands. By giving local brands a special status, and by promoting and protecting these brands, it hopes to boost the sale and export of local branded goods. As these gain popularity, it also hopes that the competitiveness of Chinese goods as a whole in the world market will increase.

Manufacturers of medicinal products are legally obliged to obtain regulatory approval for their product before marketing of that product may begin. However, where different salts, esters, ethers, isomers, complexes or derivatives of a brand (on-patent) drug are made by a generic company, and these differ significantly in properties with regard to safety and/or efficacy when compared to the patented drug, additional clinical data demonstrating the safety and/or efficacy of that generic drug must be submitted by the generic company to the marketing authority.