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Intellectual property protection is a "serious problem" in China, European Commissioner for External Trade Peter Mandelson said last month.

An understanding of copyright developments has become vital for all involved in digital and networking technology. Yuko Noguchi of Mori Hamada & Matsumoto analyzes recent legal changes and court decisions in this area, and compares Japanese and US practice

The Korean Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling on April 27 2006, establishing a list of factors that must now be considered when calculating the reasonable royalty rate in all patent infringement cases.

On April 26 the European Commission responsible for Justice, Safety and Liberty presented a proposal for a directive aimed at strengthening the fight against counterfeits.

The hedge fund industry has become big business in recent years and funds have tried to distinguish themselves for investors by choosing unique names to serve as source identifiers for the particular financial services they offer. As the hedge fund industry expands, financial service providers doing business in the United States offering investment opportunities often come into conflict with similar companies domiciled overseas using confusingly similar names. However, the unique regulations that apply to the hedge fund industry may, under certain circumstances, alter the traditional trade mark analysis applied when a trade mark dispute arises.

Intellectual property owners have thus far been sceptical about effective enforcement of IP rights in India. Long delays in litigation and poor enforceability of court orders made IP enforcement close to impossible in India for several years. Things are looking brighter now.

Section 40(3) of the Australian Patents Act 1990 sets out that the claims of a patent specification must be "fairly based on the matter described in the specification". Essentially, this means that the support for the full breadth of the claims must be found in the description. This is one of the most contentious areas of Australian patent law.

On June Law 19/2006 to increase protection for IP rights was published in the Spanish Official Gazette. The Law establishes the rules of proceedings to facilitate the enforcement of different Community regulations. This Law transposes Directive 2004/48/CE regarding IP rights to guarantee a high level of protection, equivalent and homogeneous, in the internal market.

For Singapore patent applications, it has been common practice to make voluntary amendments, in particular to the claims, at any time before payment of the grant fee. The patent applications could proceed to grant even though the amendments were not searched and examined.

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