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The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) holds German trade mark registrations for Fussball WM 2006 and WM 2006 for, inter alia, goods and services covering sporting events. These registrations were subject to cancellation actions, filed by Ferrero, who submitted that the marks lack distinctive character and are descriptive in relation to such goods and services; moreover, it was also alleged that the trade mark registrations were filed in bad faith.

IP owners who expect China's enforcement regime to mirror that in Europe and the US may be disappointed. But as Patrick Coyne and Ningling Wang of Finnegan Henderson explain, the Chinese system still provides plenty of enforcement opportunities for foreign investors willing to look beyond the newspaper headlines

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.

Customs officers have the power to stop the flow of fakes at China's borders. But if they are to do their job properly, they need far more help from IP owners, says Li Qunying, chief of the IP division in China's Customs administration

The snappily titled The Performances (Moral Rights etc) Regulations 2006 will help us all answer the question "Who is that singer?" and avoid the comment "Oi, that's my recording you're mucking about with!"

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.

"2P or not 2P" was scribbled in a coin phone box in the UK in the 1990s and has recently been the title of an article in The Guardian on whether or not the 1p and 2p coins should be taken out of circulation in the UK. While having a different connotation, the same question can equally be asked about the IP rights for plants in Europe. The two types of IP rights for plants which co-exist in Europe, patents and plant variety rights (PVR), overlap in their scope of protection to a considerable extent, although the original intention had been to keep these two Ps separate.

On January 25 2006, the Mexican Law of Industrial Property (LIP) was amended. Among other changes, these included a new infringement cause which provides as follows:

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

How easily patents are granted and how well the overall patent system works are questions addressed by several reviews at the moment, one of them being the Gowers Review in the UK. Stephen Bennett and Daniel Brook ask whether the inventive step requirement is part of the problem in a system that produces a growing number of questionable patents