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The Singapore courts, after a period of relative calm, have considered and interpreted the Trade Marks Act in a spate of recent cases. Dedar Singh Gill, Paul Teo and Yvonne Tang of Drew & Napier outline the latest trade mark litigation developments

The state of implementation of the EU Directive on the enforcement of IP rights varies across Europe, although progress has been made in virtually all jurisdictions. Hub. Harmeling and Bas Berghuisvan Woortman provide an update on the most significant markets

In the past few years, the abundance of technical information on the internet has allowed patent attorneys to become versed in technical fields that previously would have been inaccessible. Gwilym Roberts argues that this enables advisers to be more mobile in handling new areas and is also good news for innovators

Quality of search and examination is top of the list of demands from most patent applicants. MIP asked EPO President Alain Pompidou what the Office is doing to ensure that standards are maintained

Multinational enterprises often allocate the ownership of IP among their group companies with more regard to legal than to tax issues. Karen Hughes and Domenico Borzumato consider ways in which companies can manage their IP internationally so as to achieve greater tax efficiency

Korea's Customs Service and KIPO, along with numerous Korean e-commerce sites and the European Chamber of Commerce, have been working with a number of famous brand owners to cut down on the proliferation of manufacturing, marketing and exporting of counterfeit goods. So far, their efforts have been successful. Estimates indicate over $90 million-worth of counterfeit goods were seized between February and April, a tremendous increase from the $30 million-worth seized in the whole of 2005.

According to Turkish IP law, there is no distinction whatsoever between famous, or highly reputed marks, and well-known marks. The law simply refers to well-known marks as one single concept.

The issue of improving the Russian legislation in the field of intellectual property has long been on the agenda. Ever since the new versions of IP laws were adopted in 2002-2003 (the Russian Copyright law was amended in 2004) there was much discussion about further improvements. In fact, the amendments of three years ago did not solve all the problems though they did make some good patches over the legislative gaps. The work continued and by 2006 there were prepared numerous proposals for the patent and trade mark laws.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, IPOPhil, officially launched its new service called TM Online on April 25 2006. After encountering some initial problems, TM Online became available to the public in May 2006. This project is not new. As early as November 26 2004, IPOPhil issued Office Order No. 25 Series of 2004, amended by Office Order No. 42, providing for the rules on the trade mark electronic filing system. However, its implementation was deferred following demand from practitioners for clearer rules. The following are the requirements for using TM Online:

On July 18 2006, the full court of the Australian Federal Court, in Grant v Commissioner of Patents [2006] FCAFC 120, made a significant pronouncement likely to add confusion to the borders of possible business method patent protection in Australia.