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Until recently, the federal legislation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) did not deal with the challenges that arose from the advent of the digital age. The only law that dealt with some of those issues was the Electronic Transactions and Commerce Law Number 2 of 2002 of the Emirate of Dubai, a law that applied only to the Emirate of Dubai. This year, two new laws, Federal Law Number 1 of 2006 regarding Electronic Transactions and Commerce, and Federal Law Number 2 of 2006 regarding Cyber Crime, were issued to deal respectively with e-commerce and cyber crime issues. These laws were issued to regulate and meet the challenges of contracts concluded online.

Turkey issued its patent law first in 1879, making it one of the earliest countries to do so, but unfortunately no further steps were taken until 1994, when the Turkish Patent Institute was founded. The Turkish Patent Decree Law, comparable to modern provisions, was published in 1995 and was followed by related regulations and several amendments.

Last year the Swedish Customs Service made more interventions against counterfeits than ever before. More than 280,000 items with a market value of some SEK127 million ($17.5 million) were seized. This is good news for trade mark owners and owners of other forms of IP. However, it must be assumed that only a tiny fraction of counterfeit goods are being detected and there is much to suggest that the importation of counterfeit goods will continue to increase and reach new, record-high levels. So the Swedish authorities are now devoting ever-increasing resources to hunting down counterfeiters.

Following the ECJ's decisions in Kit Kat, Thomson Life and Picaro, Carles Prat asks: is likelihood of confusion taking a break? Further clarification may come in the pending Opel case

In the case of Shangri-La International Hotel Management et al (SLIHM), v Developers Group of Companies, Inc (DGCI) issued on March 31 2006, involving the trade marks Shangri-La and the S logo, the Supreme Court reversed the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Regional Trial Court which found SLIHM guilty of trade mark infringement, and ruled in favour of SLIHM.

Awareness of commercial opportunities is prompting celebrities and sports stars to take action over use of their names - but where is the boundary between fair use and exploitation? Jonathan Moskin reviews recent cases on the right of publicity in the US

Meir Perez Pugatch introduces a project organized jointly by MIP and the Stockholm Network, in association with Progress & Freedom Foundation, to assess the level of IP protection available for the IT industry in the world's major markets

Transferring technology across borders is always complex, and particularly so when the countries involved are the US and China. Zhu (Julie) Lee and J Bruce Schelkopf provide some practical legal strategies

Fierce battles between branded and generic pharmaceutical companies have been played out in the English courts. Brian Whitehead, Stuart Jackson and Richard Kempner provide effective strategies for both obtaining and avoiding interim injunctions

Software piracy: Vietnam and Zimbabwe had the highest software piracy rates in the world last year, at 90%, according to the annual Business Software Alliance/IDC piracy study. But piracy rates in Russia and China fell. Globally, piracy cost the software industry $34 billion, according to the Alliance (see charts).