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As many technology-rich companies face economic problems, they are looking to their intellectual property to raise money. Zack Clement, Johnathan Bolton and Carmen R Eggleston analyze the role of IP rights and licences in financial restructuring

When, in 1993, Czechoslovakia separated into two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, both republics incorporated Czechoslovak valid law into their legislation. As far as IP rights are concerned, the most important act was the Patents Act No 527/90. In the following years both republics were working on their own legislation and individual Trade Marks Acts were adopted. However, the work continued. International cooperation required substantial harmonization with legislation of the European Union and as far as patent law was concerned; the work was focused on substantial harmonisation with EPC.

Australia: MicroMedical Industries has been granted a second US patent for technology relating to a blood pump used in its artificial hearts. The patent brings the company one step closer to conducting human clinical trials of the artificial heart.

Flairis Technology (Flairis), a local contract manufacturer, has obtained a court injunction to stop four of its ex-staff from using the company's trade secrets after quitting to join a competitor.

According to the Romanian Trade Mark Law no 84, art 23 and the Regulation for implementing the Law, rule 19, within three months of the date of publication of a trade mark, the owner of an earlier mark or of a well-known mark, the holder of an earlier right in a likeness or surname, a protected geographical indication or a protected industrial design or any other concerned person, may file an opposition to a published mark with the State Office for Inventions and Trade Marks.

Over half of UK companies have no system in place to protect intellectual property, according to a survey conducted by UK firm Marks & Clerk. The survey canvassed 203 companies in four sectors ? pharmaceutical, technology, engineering and financial. The survey revealed that 77% of companies believe they should protect their IP, but only 49% have a system in place to identify when they need to seek patent protection, and only 30% carry out regular IP audits.

Hong Kong's high profile anti-piracy legislation is to be partly suspended less than a month after it came into effect. The Hong Kong administration is to enact the Copyright (Suspension of Amendments) Ordinance, which will put parts of its anti-piracy legislation on hold after protests from the public and industry. The administration's much-lauded Intellectual Property (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance to combat copyright infringement came into effect on April 1. The highly-publicized legislation aimed to make criminally liable anyone who possessed pirated copies of copyrighted works in the course of, or in connection with, any trade or business.

Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline's proposed scheme to restrict exports of cheap medicines from Spain to other parts of Europe is illegal under EU competition rules, according to the European Commission. On May 8, Mario Monti, the EU competition commissioner, ended three years of deliberation by banning the dual-pricing scheme claiming it interfered with the Community's objective of integrating national markets and restricting price competition.

The Ukraine's reputation as the world's most persistent IP violator was confirmed in this year's US Trade Representative Special 301 Report. The Ukraine, identified as a Priority Foreign Country on March 12, almost certainly faces trade sanctions at the end of June unless it takes radical moves to address its severe IP problems.

A global campaign to overturn a US patent on basmati rice has scored a major victory with the announcement that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has thrown out 13 of 16 remaining claims from US-based RiceTec's controversial patent. John J Doll, the director of biotechnology examination at the USPTO, himself examined and rejected 13 claims from the patent. He judged that the rice lines, plants and grains that the company claimed in the application were prior art or substantially identical to basmati varieties grown in India and Pakistan, and hence could not be patented.