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More and more IP owners are heading to the Chinese courts to enforce their rights. But complex rules on evidence and procedure can quickly entangle plaintiffs and their lawyers. Judy Chan and Ross Parsonage explain how to ensure your IP portfolio is litigation-ready

A new index measures the strength of IP protection for the IT industry in 10 key markets. Meir Perez Pugatch explains how the index was compiled, and discusses some of the findings

The ECJ has failed to clear confusion over the Dutch approach to cross-border patent litigation. By Peter Hendrick and Bas Berghuis van Woortman of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

A monthly column devoted to IP curiosities and controversies, named in honour of John of Utynam - who received the world's first recorded patent in 1449

As IP owners begin to pay for their first batch of renewals for 10-year old Community trade marks, many are finding their budgets under increasing pressure. Emma Barraclough talked to in-house counsel to get their top 10 tips for keeping IP portfolios in good shape and avoiding spiralling costs

Emma Barraclough, London

Shahnaz Mahmud, Rio de Janeiro

Emma Barraclough, London

The Verified Rights Owner Programme (VeRO) is eBay's attempt to win over disgruntled rights owners. It provides them with an alternative to suing eBay when they find allegedly infringing goods offered for sale or auction on its site. Participants in the VeRO programme instead send eBay a Notice of Infringement form, specifying the allegedly infringing listing and identifying the trade mark, copyright, patent or registered design right which is said to be infringed. eBay will then remove the offending listing. So far so good for the rights owners. Unfortunately for them however a recent decision has held that such Notices of Infringement can constitute groundless threats of infringement. This can leave rights owners open to injunction applications to restrain such threats and claims for damages. Rights owners should therefore think carefully before making use of the VeRO programme.

Researchers at universities and polytechnics in Finland have previously had lots of freedom relating to inventions and IP rights. This means that all inventions made by researchers in universities belonged to the researcher himself. This is about to change. A new law, the Right to University Inventions Act, is coming into force on January 1 2007. This Act brings some radical changes into how IP rights matters are handled in Finnish universities.