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Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

"Today we are putting our most valuable intellectual property on the table so we can put technical compliance issues to rest and move forward with a serious discussion about the substance of this case." That was how Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice-president and general counsel, explained the company's decision to license parts of its Windows source code to competitors on January 25.

Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

Recently, the Australian Federal Court considered the principles of the operation of the country's laws on the doctrine of equivalents and adopted the UK "Improver" approach.

Translation of priority documents no longer required From January 1 2006, patent applicants are no longer required to provide Korean translations of priority documents unless requested to do so by an examiner at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) or a trial examiner at KIPO's Intellectual Property Tribunal. Applications where the deadline for submitting a Korean translation of priority documents expires on or after January 1 2006 will be subject to this new rule. As a result, foreign applicants will benefit from substantially lower patent filing costs in Korea because they will no longer need to pay translation costs.

With effect from January 1 2006, the Italian Parliament has abolished all official fees and stamp duties due in Italy on patents (including national phases of European patents), utility models and designs. The provision, which is effective immediately, relates to patents, utility models and designs filed from January 1 2006, and – as far as annual and five-year renewal fees due from January 1 2006 are concerned – to cases filed up to December 31 2005.

Stéphanie Bodoni, London

With discussions on the accession to the European Union and global harmonization of IP protection in an emerging economy, Turkey has experienced remarkable advances not only in the new regulations introduced but also in the enforcement of IP rights.

In October 2005, the Provincial Appellate Court of Madrid gave an interesting judgment in an action that Lilly Group had brought against two companies in the business of selling generic products. The judgment confirmed that these companies' advertising was illegal and that there was trade mark infringement. The judgment is particularly noteworthy as high damages were awarded compared to what is usual in Spain.

Patented inventions in Ireland provide a large source of revenue in the pharmaceutical and technology industries. Ireland's tax exemption in respect of certain patent royalties has been one of the driving factors behind investment by multinationals, principally from the US, in the Irish economy. After much recent speculation about the possible removal of the Irish patent exemption from the Irish statute books, in a welcome development, the Irish government in its recent budget retained the tax incentive for companies creating patentable intellectual property in Ireland. In this month's piece we give an overview of the main provisions of the exemption.