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In order to promote pharmaceutical research within the European Community and to keep the pharmaceutical industry from relocating to countries which offer better protection, EC Regulation Number 1768/92 for supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) was created. SPCs in the Netherlands are also governed by Regulation Number 1768/92. This is a clear and simple regulation which was meant to extend the life of a patent as far as it covered a medicinal product which had received regulatory approval and which should have led to harmonized SPC legislation in the European Community.

Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

The scope and importance of discovery during US patent trials cannot be underestimated. Jack Griem explains how the process works, and highlights the best way to get the most of the system

The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) has issued a revised set of examination guidelines for computer-related inventions. The revised guidelines came into effect on April 15 2005.

I've been working as an advertising industry lawyer in many countries around the world for about 15 years now. I must have seen every possible approach from the creative team to try to deliver on the music that a particular client will want for a TV commercial. So far as the Middle East is concerned, I'm afraid I'd say that we have a worse attitude to copyright clearance than I've seen in any other region.

India's Minister for Commerce & Industry has formed a Technical Expert Committee to study two critical issues that Parliament did not consider when it passed the Patents (Amendment) Act 2005. The Expert Committee has been asked to consider the patentability of new chemical entities and micro-organisms. If it suggests that amendments should be made to the law in relation to these two areas, changes will be incorporated into the new legislation.

James Nurton, San Diego

Patent cases are becoming more and more complex every day. Biotechnology, nanotechnology and semiconductor manufacturing are just a few of the technical fields that Judges may face when presiding over patent cases. Discovery in patent cases also often involves complex and difficult issues of relevancy and further involves disputes that are time consuming to resolve. District court judges typically do not have engineering or technical backgrounds and the caseload burdens that we place on our judges make it very difficult for them to address the discovery disputes that arise in patent cases. Thus, the question becomes what can a judge do if he/she wants or needs assistance in a patent case. Congress and the United States Supreme Court have given judges numerous options.

Sam Mamudi, New York

Member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have agreed on a text that will form the basis of the long-awaited revised Trademark Law Treaty (TLT).