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With the creation of an Intellectual Property Prosecution Office, as well as the substitution of the inquisitive criminal system, (in substitution of the accusatory system), Venezuela's judicial branch has expanded its range in protecting patentees from patent infringement.

A new trade mark law came into effect on June 1 2000 through the Emergency (Trade Marks) Order 1999. The new law is based on the UK Trade Marks Act 1994 and repeals the old Trade Marks Act (Cap 98).

On May 25 1999, the Russian President issued a Decree on the "Structure of Federal Executive Bodies". That Decree meant a major reshuffle of the governmental bodies responsible for various facets of the functioning of the Russian national economy. The Decree set up or reorganized a number of federal entities and abolished other federal bodies. For the most part, the changes concerned relatively unimportant entities and mostly remained unnoticed.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 14 2000 handed down a decision that required the Director (prior to March 29 2000, the Commissioner) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to retract his own earlier refusal to permit a patent applicant to correct, pursuant to PCT Rule 91.1 and 37 CFR 1.183 (a US Patent and Trademark Office rule) an incorrect patent application number contained in a Demand for International Preliminary Examination. This decision, Helfgott & Karas, PC v Dickinson, 54 USP Q2d 1425 (Fed Cir 2000) concludes that the Director "acted arbitrarily and capriciously in dismissing the plaintiff's petition to correct the erroneous Demand for International Preliminary Examination", inter alia, because PCT Rule 91.1 is legally binding on the Director and allows the correction of "obvious errors" in certain PCT filings, including such Demands.

Brave choices, unpopular decisions

The Romanian Patent Law 64/1991 provides for the possibility of obtaining an improvement patent.

Deals

Claims drafted overseas and filed in Australia are often accepted by the Australian Patent Office without being adapted to local laws. In particular, claims that have been examined and accepted by European or US Patent Offices are often forwarded to Australian patent attorneys for submission as is, or with perhaps with only minor modifications. This is especially the case with modified examination, where an Australian patent may be granted on the basis of a patent granted in the United States, a European convention country, Canada or New Zealand, provided it uses exactly the same wording as the granted patent. This can lead to problems during litigation.

There has been a steady flow of interesting trade mark disputes in India in the past year. Pravin Anand, of Anand & Anand in New Delhi, reviews the most important cases

James B Lumenta, of Amroos & Partners in Jakarta, explains how improvements to the Trade Mark Law make it easier to protect rights in Indonesia