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Guylyn R Cummins, Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP

? China: The State Council unveiled a new statute on copyright protection of computer software on January 11. The new legislation, which runs to 33 articles, states that an individual software developer shall retain his copyright throughout his life and for 50 years after his death.

Ralph Cunningham, Hong Kong

Slovakia is expected to join the EPC on July 1 2002. For this reason 2001 saw a lot of work in the field of IP rights, including the adoption and amendment of a Patents Act and a new Trade Marks Act which came into force on January 1 2002. Details of this will be discussed in a later issue of MIP. Industrial designs, which up until now have been governed by Act No 527/90, will be the subject of a new independent Act. The respective Bill is already under discussion and is expected to be passed in the first half of 2002. It is worth stressing that all amendments to Slovak legislation in the field of IP rights are in compliance with the EPC and that Slovakia has taken all the necessary steps to be well prepared for access to the EPC.

Administrators of commercial companies in Colombia, whether national or foreign, must submit a report of performance to a general shareholders meeting. This must be done within the first three months of the fiscal year. Contained in the report must be a disclosure of the company's compliance with the provisions on IP and copyright.

Interview: Anne Chasser Ingrid Hering interviews Anne Chasser, Commissioner for Trademarks at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Formerly the director of Trademarks and Licensing Services at Ohio State University, she has also served as president of the International Trademark Association and is a founder of the Association of Collegiate Licensing Administrators.

Ingrid Hering reports

Despite harmonization, there remain significant differences in the way freelancers are treated in the EU member states. Les Christy and Susannah Kendall contrast the situation in common law and civil law jurisdictions and examine how the situation is likely to change in the future

In Aptix Corp v Quickturn Design Systems, Inc (60 USPQ 2d 1705 (Fed Cir November 5 2001)), two members of a three-judge Federal Circuit panel held that a US patent remains "presumptively valid" and enforceable, despite the admitted blatantly fraudulent conduct of its inventor in seeking its enforcement before a federal district court. The decision is troublesome, because it overrules the contrary Federal Circuit ruling in Fraige v American National Watermattress Co (27 USPQ 2d 1149, 1151, n3 (Fed Cir 1993)) and repudiates a principle considered virtually axiomatic among US lawyers for many years ? that is, that fraud practised in connection with either acquiring or enforcing a patent renders the thus-tainted patent permanently unenforceable. Furthermore, it is difficult to see any legitimate public or private purpose that is served by pronouncing the patent presumptively valid and hence enforceable either by someone other than the original patentee or by the patentee at a later time and in the absence of the offending research notebooks.

As the Gulf Cooperation Council’s patent system goes from strength to strength, Ralph Cunningham examines how patent owners are benefiting from improved protection and enforcement throughout the region