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Spain's only CTM court, in Alicante, has decided its first cases on the merits. Alberto Casado Cerviño and Fabrizio Miazzetto examine what the rulings reveal about the application of ECJ precedents in Spain

Has China turned a corner in its commitment to protecting IP? A series of headline-grabbing court rulings at the end of 2005 in which Chinese judges upheld the rights of IP owners certainly suggests that foreign businesses can have far more success in enforcing their rights than is commonly believed. In the space of two months, Starbucks won an order for damages from would-be rival Shanghai Xing Ba Ke, Italian chocolate maker Ferrero stopped a copycat confectioner from selling look-alike products and five luxury goods companies persuaded a Beijing court to hold a landlord jointly liable for sales of fakes in his market.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government has stepped up its action against software piracy. Over the past year, raids were successfully carried out and lead to a number of people being arrested, large numbers of PCs and pirated software confiscated and pirated goods destroyed, and fines imposed on various individuals and companies. This is reassuring for companies wanting to enter the UAE.

China's CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Centre) Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy has been superseded by a new policy that came into force on March 17 2006. There are a number of important changes.

Even the European Commission admits that the Enforcement Directive is "complicated". Maybe that explains why many member states are struggling to meet the implementation deadline at the end of this month. The Directive promises to rewrite national civil procedural codes on IP rights to provide uniform enforcement across the EU. Stéphanie Bodoni investigates how it will achieve this

James Nurton, London

The Ghanaian Trade Marks Act, which came into force on January 1 2004, introduced clear and effective provisions for trade mark protection. The law makes it possible to register service marks, recognizes well-known trade marks and provides for comprehensive civil and criminal remedies against counterfeiting.

The legal relationship between joint owners of a patent is based on the applicable national law. In Germany, in the absence of any contract, the principle of Bruchteilsgemeinschaft (community of part owners) in accordance with Section 741 and following of the German Civil Code will apply: a legal entity sharing undivided interests in the patent is created.

The Federal Court in Wm Wrigley Jr Company v Cadbury Schweppes Pty Ltd ([2005] FCA 1035) produced a sobering reminder of the need to review and amend Australian patent applications based on corresponding foreign applications.

Judging what intellectual property a firm should protect, when and to what extent, are all critical questions for any technology-based venture - as the current Blackberry case demonstrates all too well. Stephen Bates reports