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A recent High Court decision on copyright infringement has demonstrated the importance of distinguishing the author of a work from the rightful copyright owner of the work. As copyright is not registrable in many countries including Singapore, the locus standi to sue for copyright infringement does not stem from a simple registration certificate. It is always paramount to trace the copyright from the author of the work to the plaintiff in order to ensure that the latter has the requisite capacity to sue.

Schering-Plough and two generic manufacturers have been charged by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with conspiring to keep a generic version of the drug K-Dur 20 off the market. The FTC charged Schering with paying Upsher-Smith Labs and ESI Lederle to keep the drug off the market in an effort to maintain a monopoly on its manufacture, which is costing consumers $100 million per year.

On April 2, technology standard-makers voted against adding copy-protection support directly into computer hardware, a controversial proposal aiming to smooth adoption of strong anti-piracy safeguards. The vote was closely watched by hardware makers, Hollywood studios and record labels as well as free speech advocates as a signal of how much control the content and computer industries would have over consumers' use of home PCs.

CANADA: Percy Schmeiser, a 70-year old farmer, lost a patent infringement suit against Monsanto Canada. Monsanto claimed Schmeiser infringed the GM Canola patent by growing and selling crops from seeds blown into his garden. UK: A British court ruled in favour of Amgen in its patent infringement suit against Roche Holding and Transkaryotic Therapies (TKT). Roche and TKT were held to infringe the Epogen patents in the UK. US: Fruit of the Loom is accusing competitor Gildan Activewear of stealing trade secrets. Fruit of the Loom alleges that former manager Elizabeth Walton passed critical documents to her ex-employer David Cherry. US: Jupiter Media Metrix reached a settlement in its patent infringement suit forcing PC Data out of the business of tracking internet usage. Jupiter also filed suits against two other competitors, NetValue and NetRatings, for patent infringement. Jupiter was represented by Daniel R Harris of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. US: Monsanto and Aventis Crop Science settled two lawsuits against each other and agreed to avoid patent roadblocks to the development of genetically improved cotton varieties. Part of the settlement includes cross-licensing under existing cotton transformation patents. US: Pfizer filed a trade mark suit against Lara Williams for using the name Niagara for a fizzy drink. Pfizer contends Niagara is being promoted as Viagra for women. US: Pharmacia filed a trade mark suit against Alcon Laboratories for selling a competing drug with a similar name. Pharmacia allege their drug Xalatan has been harmed by Alcon naming its glaucoma drug Travatan. US: PrimeTime 24 Joint Venture lost its Supreme Court appeal against the National Football League to transmit NFL games to customers in Canada. PrimeTime argued that federal copyright law did not apply outside the US, but the Court held the company's actions violated NFL's copyright. US: Savin Corporation won its preliminary injunction against Main Street Copier & Fax Repair, who operated websites under domain names, incorporating trade names owned by Savin. Savin was represented by David A Einhorn, Andrea Pincus and James M Andriola of Anderson Kill & Olick. US: SunTrust Bank won its suit against Alice Randall for copyright infringement, over her book The Wind Done Gone. SunTrust bank accused Randall of infringing the copyright of the classic novel Gone with the Wind. US: Twelve major Hollywood studios won their case against RecordTV.com, which must pay the studios $50,000 (£35,714) in legal costs. Robert Schwartz of O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles represented the studios.

Three years after the European Database Directive came into force, protection is being tested in the courts. Georgie Taylor examines the lessons from recent cases

One of the world's most valuable domain names has just got more expensive ? $65 million more. On April 3, a Californian court awarded $65 million to Gary Kremen, who originally registered the sex.com domain name in 1994.

Jane Mutimear, Bird & Bird, London, Vice president of the Intellectual Property Constituency of ICANN

Fittingly, I am writing this column on April 26 ? the first World Intellectual Property Day. Today, which will become an annual celebration, is the date when the Convention establishing WIPO entered into force in 1970.

A decision of special interest to the biotechnology community, Hitzeman v Rutter, 58 USPQ 2d 1161 (Fed Cir 2001), was delivered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC or Federal Circuit) on March 21. The case arose as an appeal from the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Board of Appeals and Interferences and it involved a determination of who is entitled to receive a US patent covering the particulate hepatitis B surface antigen produced in yeast cells, which is an effective human vaccine against hepatitis B. Prior to this invention, it was doubted by informed scientists that satisfactory hepatitis B surface antigen for vaccine purposes could be achieved using recombinant yeast cells as host cells, since bacterial host cells transformed with DNA encoding the hepatitis B surface antigen had been shown to produce a non-particulate antigen having no capability to impart immunity to hepatitis B in humans.

Research into the human genome has opened up the possibility of collecting, publishing and even patenting individual genes. Andreas Schrell and Nils Heide explain how a new law will regulate the gene database in Estonia