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Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

The Intellectual Property Office (IPOPhil) and the EC-ASEAN Cooperation Programme (ECAP II) held a five-day Patent Application Drafting and Prosecution seminar from October 10 to 15, which was conducted by Karl Rackette, a European and German patent attorney. At the seminar, IPOPhil distributed a draft regulation aimed at introducing a qualifying examination for patent agents. At the moment, there is no formal patent attorney or patent agent profession in the Philippines. Patent applications are handled by lawyers with assistance from people with technical knowledge, many of whom are former IPOPhil patent examiners. The objective of the proposed regulation is to develop a patent agent profession in the country. The main points of the proposal are as follows:

Stéphanie Bodoni, London

The revised Patent Act, which has significantly amended Korea's compulsory licensing system, will come into force on December 1 2005. The Presidential Decree, which regulates the details of the revised Act has been made public and will also take effect on the same date.

In May 2003, when India's Patent Act was amended, a new Section 107A was introduced. This provided for a research exemption as an exception to the general rules of patent infringement. Commonly known as a Bolar provision, this research exemption enables a manufacturer of generic drugs to use a patented invention to obtain marketing approval without the patent owner's permission before the patent expires. The generic drug maker can then market their own version of the patented drug as soon as the patent expires.

The Malaysian government announced its 2006 budget on September 30. Many of the proposals in it were aimed at ensuring Malaysia is in a good position to attract foreign direct investment, especially in the technology sector.

In April 2005 the EPO's Board of Appeal published its T 998/99 decision on the exhaustion of priority under the European Patent Convention (EPC). The case analyzed whether a European patent application may validly claim priority of an earlier application, although another European patent application had already claimed the priority of this earlier application.

Sam Mamudi, New York

Trade mark protection in Venezuela is governed by Andean Community legislation as well as national laws. José Gregorio Torrealba-Rodríguez explains some idiosyncrasies of the system, and how to challenge trade mark applications and registrations

The TRIPs Agreement requires countries to introduce Customs measures to deal with goods that infringe trade marks and copyright. But, explains Federico A Aulmann of Obligado & Cia, Argentina has gone further by introducing legislation to tackle the import and export of goods infringing all IP rights