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Indonesia has made slow progress in tackling the piracy that has thwarted IP rights owners in the country. Nicholas Redfearn examines the country’s attempts to develop effective protection and reveals how some rights owners are coping with the problems

The month in figures

Tegal Corp v Tokyo Electron Co, 58 USPQ2d 1791 (Fed Cir, May 14 2001) involves the interesting issue of what constitutes conduct contemptuous of an injunction against wilful patent infringement under US law.

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.