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Stéphanie Bodoni, London

"Today we are putting our most valuable intellectual property on the table so we can put technical compliance issues to rest and move forward with a serious discussion about the substance of this case." That was how Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice-president and general counsel, explained the company's decision to license parts of its Windows source code to competitors on January 25.

Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

Translation of priority documents no longer required From January 1 2006, patent applicants are no longer required to provide Korean translations of priority documents unless requested to do so by an examiner at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) or a trial examiner at KIPO's Intellectual Property Tribunal. Applications where the deadline for submitting a Korean translation of priority documents expires on or after January 1 2006 will be subject to this new rule. As a result, foreign applicants will benefit from substantially lower patent filing costs in Korea because they will no longer need to pay translation costs.

With effect from January 1 2006, the Italian Parliament has abolished all official fees and stamp duties due in Italy on patents (including national phases of European patents), utility models and designs. The provision, which is effective immediately, relates to patents, utility models and designs filed from January 1 2006, and – as far as annual and five-year renewal fees due from January 1 2006 are concerned – to cases filed up to December 31 2005.

Recently, the Australian Federal Court considered the principles of the operation of the country's laws on the doctrine of equivalents and adopted the UK "Improver" approach.

IP concerns are increasingly likely to make or break cross-border M&A deals in China. In the second of a two-part series, Catherine Sun provides a step-by-step guide to getting it right

As many observers predicted, WTO members made little progress at their ministerial meeting in December. Does the Organization still have a role to play in setting global IP rules? Emma Barraclough reports from Hong Kong

Stéphanie Bodoni, London

As global IP chief for one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, Jackie Leimer has considerable experience of working with private practice law firms. She shares some of her insights with Sam Mamudi