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Following two reviews of Australia's intellectual property legislation, the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2006 was introduced into the Australian Parliament on March 30 2006. If passed in its present form, the Bill will make a number of changes to Australia's legislation, particularly to the Trade Marks Act 1995 and the Patents Act 1990.

The Japanese government has introduced a regional collective trade mark system to boost the value of the country's agricultural exports. John Tessensohn and Shusaku Yamamoto explain how it will work and who will benefit

News and photos from MIP's third annual Brand Management Forum, featuring leading in-house counsel and trade mark regulators, held in London at the end of March

The growth in applications has raised more questions about the qualification requirements for patent attorneys in Turkey. Only patent attorneys are statutorily allowed to represent foreign applicants with regard to patents before the Turkish Patent Institute (TPI).

The Swedish Supreme Court has recently (February 1 2006) delivered a judgment in an interesting trade mark case, which concerns how and when a registered trade mark can be cancelled for non-use, and in particular the date from which the period of non-use of a trade mark must be calculated.

On March 1 2006, US pharmaceutical company Pfizer sued the Philippine International Trading Corp (PITC) and the Bureau of Food And Drugs (BFAD) before the Regional Trial Court of Makati Branch 61. It accused them of infringing its patent for its anti-hypertension drug Norvasc (which has the generic name amlodipine besylate), after the PITC imported some samples of a similar drug sold by Pfizer in India (under the brand name Amlogard) and submitted the samples to the BFAD for testing and product registration. Pfizer's Philippine patent expires in June 2007. The PITC filed a Ps1.5 million ($30,000) countersuit against Pfizer, claiming that the US company was attempting to stop the government from importing cheap medicine.

On April 3 2006 the UK Patent Office took the lead in promoting alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in Intellectual Property disputes by being the first patent and trade mark office anywhere in the world to set up a formal commercial mediation service. The initiative involves the creation of a new Mediation Service Team within the Patent Office who are able to mediate IP disputes referred to them from Patent Office hearings, the Courts or the parties themselves. To raise awareness of the new service the Patent Office has issued Guidance Notes on its website and is producing a range of literature aimed at encouraging parties to consider mediation as an alternative to litigation.

The Mexican Patent Office has finally implemented internal examining guidelines that substantially mirror those of the European Patent Office for the examination of computer software-implemented inventions. The emphasis now to be placed by Mexican examiners examining computer software-implemented inventions is on the technical characteristics that have a technical effect rather than on the subject matter of the invention.

A recent decision of the UK High Court has confirmed that Trade Marks Registry oppositions can create estoppel in subsequent High Court infringement proceedings.

Italy has ratified Directive 98/44/EC on the protection of biotechnological inventions, aimed at harmonizing the laws of the member states to promote investment in the field of biotechnology and avoid barriers to trade.