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An October 25 2000 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit re-emphasizes the importance of the so-called "written description" requirement of United States patent law. In Purdue Pharma LP v Faulding Inc, 56 USPQ 2d 1481 (Fed Cir 2000), the Court affirmed a district court ruling invalidating several claims because nothing in the underlying patent application clearly and necessarily described the subject matter later embodied in its issued claims, saying:

Two of the paint industry´ s leading manufacturers were recently engaged in a court battle over the use of the phrase "3 in 1". Nippon Paint (Nippon) had alleged that its rival, ICI Paints (ICI), had been passing off products that were confusingly similar to its "Nippon 3 in 1" interior wall paint.

In Euromarket Designs Inc v Peters & anr (unreported: 27/07/2000), the claimant ran the US "Crate & Barrel" stores selling household goods and furniture, and also owned UK and Community-wide trade marks. The first defendant owned a company (the second defendant) which had a shop in Ireland called "Crate & Barrel". The defendants had a website to sell their products and advertised in Homes & Gardens magazine which has a UK and Republic of Ireland based circulation. The claimant sought summary judgment in the UK alleging infringement of its UK trade mark. The defendants intended to sell only to and in the Irish market and therefore argued that it was not using the trade mark "in the course of trade" in the UK.

Today the Russian Federation is a country where industrial property continues to grow in importance.

The system of protection of geographical indications which is being introduced in Poland (the respective provisions of the Industrial Property Law will come into force in the first half of 2001) provides for full respect of rights deriving from earlier trade mark registrations.

In Mexico, the Domain Name Registrar is an entity called NIC-Mexico (Network Information Centre de Mexico), which handles registration and administration of domain names identified with the ccTLD (country code Top Level Domain) ".mx". NIC-Mexico is not an authority and it has not been granted official authorization for being in charge of the Mexican domain names management. However, NIC-Mexico is today the only "entity" which has responsibility for managing Mexican domains.

By means of a disclaimer, non-patentable embodiments can be excluded from the scope of a generic claim. Disclaimers are most often used in order to establish novelty. Both the German Patent Office and the European Patent Office accept disclaimers and do not require the disclaimer to have a basis in the patent application as filed.

Napster, MP3.com, and Scour have all sent shivers down the spines of internet copyright holders in the digital copyright war. But a decision by the Librarian of Congress may provide the additional weaponry copyright holders need.

Biotechnology and e-commerce have raised the demand for and created a shortage of specialized IP attorneys in the US. Law firms are under pressure to raise recruitment levels and reduce attrition. Tabitha Parker investigates

o China: