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Brands have become some of companies' most valuable assets. With increasingly more companies waking up to that fact, the pressure is on trade mark advisers to find the best protection and enforcement strategies. Darren Olivier and John Olsen of Field Fisher Waterhouse explain

The EU has spoken: the directive for the patenting of computer-implemented inventions is dead. But that does not mean the end for software-related patents, as long as patent attorneys consider all possible drawbacks when drafting applications, say Maarten Ketelaars and Harry de Hoog of Nederlandsch Octrooibureau

The Community trade mark system will next year celebrate its tenth anniversary. Over the years many have benefited from its unique advantages. But the system is still subject to regular changes, which require practitioners' close attention, say Julie Kay and Pen Hosford, of Marks & Clerk Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys

A wave of decisions on (non) descriptive trade marks and likelihood of confusion have recently come out of the EU's Luxembourg-based courts. Bénédicte Linden and Jean L Pire of GEVERS examine the cases and the dangers of over-analyzing trade marks

Harmonizing EU laws and practices across all member states is one of the key goals of the European Commission and EU legislators. But how successful has this process been in the IP field, and how has it affected IP-owning businesses? Paul Joseph of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer explains

In June this year, MIP and the Stockholm Network jointly organized a roundtable in Brussels on the future of innovation in Europe. James Nurton, editor of MIP, and Meir Pugatch, of Haifa University, who is head of the IP and competition programme at the Stockholm Network, introduce a special report

Harold Wegner, partner of Foley & Lardner LLP

NIC-Argentina (www.nic.ar) has implemented new rules governing the .ar country code top-level domain (cc-TLD) domain names. NIC has put into force Article 5 of the domain name regulation, which was put on hold at the time the rules were enacted in 2000. Article 5 sets out that domain name registrations shall be valid for one-year terms, counted from registration date, and may be renewed indefinitely. Renewal applications will be received in the last month that the registration is in force, and domain names that are not renewed shall be eliminated from the Registry automatically.

The Hangzhou Administration for Industry and Commerce (AIC), the local body responsible for administrative enforcement of trade mark rules, appears to be following the practice of Beijing's local AIC by giving special protection to certain well-known brands.

For its impact on patent owners, Phillips v AWH Corporation is one of the most important cases of the past decade. Thankfully, says Irv Feit, the Federal Circuit found a compromise between the competing approaches to claim interpretation