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Growing demand for highly skilled employees in China means high staff turnover and the risk that your company's IP could end up in your competitors' hands. Connie Carnabuci explains how well-drafted employment agreements could protect you

Trade mark owners who applied for .eu domain names during the sunrise period should know whether they have successfully obtained their desired domains before the end of this month.

In order to protect their valuable brands from infringement and dilution, American companies often engage in a diligent monitoring of the marketplace for third party uses of marks that may be confusingly similar to their brands. These monitoring programmes typically include a review of every domain name registration which incorporates a formative of the company's particular trade mark. Aggressive trade mark owners will take enforcement measures against third party owners of domain names incorporating formatives of the mark at issue. These aggressive tactics can often lead the trade mark owner into conflict with a foreign entity using the identical mark and owning a domain name registration which incorporates such mark.

The Intellectual Property Office Of Singapore has recently issued a consultation paper that proposed a PCT national phase track for national phase entry applications in Singapore. The proposed track entails revisions to existing search and examination timelines and grant fee deadlines for these patent applications.

With the impending free trade agreement negotiations with the US, the Malaysian government appears to be making new moves to strengthen intellectual property rights enforcement. Specialized IP courts are proposed and the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry has also proposed that the copyright laws be amended to prosecute building owners with the offence of allowing their premises to be used for storing, selling or distributing counterfeit materials.

New Zealand's Supreme Court was established in 2003 and replaces the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as New Zealand's highest court. The Supreme Court recently heard its first intellectual property case – Peterson Portable Sawing Systems Ltd (in LIQ) & Anor v Lucas & Anor (SC, 30/8/2006; Elias CJ, Gault, Keith, Blanchard & Tipping JJ, SC 14/2005; [2006] NZ SC 20.

With the implementation of the European Directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (2004/48/EC, April 29 2004), the enforcement landscape will become rather different.

Photos and reports from the INTA Annual Meeting held in Toronto, Canada last month.

Calculating damages in trade secrets cases can be more difficult than in cases involving other IP rights. Marc J Pensabene and Christopher E Loh consider strategies for plaintiffs and defendants and, overleaf, provide a guide to how contracts can help you avoid liability

In its ruling in eBay v MercExchange, the US Supreme Court seems to have found a comfortable middle ground that keeps everyone happy. But, as James Nurton reports, some fear it will lead to inconsistency in the courts