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Electronic filing is the future. The European Patent Office’s new website offers that and much, much more. James Nurton takes a sneak preview at epoline.org

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.

Jeremy Phillips looks again at the function of trade marks in the light of three cases which are heading towards the ECJ

BRAZIL: Merck slashed prices of two AIDS drugs, just days after threatening to take Brazil's state-owned pharmaceutical firm Far-Manguinhos to court for violating the patent on an AIDS drug. Brazil has agreed to halt its plans to challenge the patent. CHINA: Cable TV, the sole provider of pay-TV programmes in China, is urging the Chinese government to outlaw the possession of unauthorized decoders openly on sale in Shenzhen. The Broadcasting Ordinance forbids the manufacture and sale of decoders but does not forbid unauthorized viewing. CHINA: Philips Electronics is to invest $1 in a new assembly and test plant in China. CHINA: A senior manager of the Unilever group is in custody after being accused of helping a local firm to produce fake Unilever products. CHINA: The government is to pass legislation to extend copyright protection to cover the internet, and bring its legislation in to line with developed countries. CHINA: People in Hebei in China will be rewarded up to 10% of the amount of the fines imposed if they report the production or sale of fake or inferior goods to anti-counterfeiting departments. CZECH REPUBLIC: Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar, which has a long-running trade mark dispute with Anheuser-Busch, has relinquished rights to the Budweiser name in the US. Budvar will adopt Czechvar as the brand name for its product in the American beer market. JAPAN: The first dispute over internet domain names in an Asian alphabet has ruled in favour of Japanese Pharmaceutical company Sankyo. WIPO ordered the immediate transfer of the two-character Japanese name which corresponds to sankyo.com. SWEDEN: From May 7, Skriptor, changs its name to Compu-Mark Nordic for its trade mark searching activities but will function under the Skriptor name for its name creation activities. UK: Three people were convicted for their part in a multi-million pound software counterfeit scam to defraud Microsoft. The fraudsters received jail sentences of 10 years. US: Abbott Laboratories plans to sell its two AIDS drugs at no profit in sub-Saharan Africa. The drugs will be sold for less than $1000 each. In the US they sell for $7,100. US: EMI and Bertelsmann joined together to launch a new subscription-based music service on the web called MusicNet. RealNetworks is bringing its internet media technology into the partnership. MusicNet will be available later this year. The companies will license the platform to companies wanting to sell music subscription services on the web including Napster. US: Mylan Laboratories and Watson Pharmaceuticals received approval from US regulators to market generic forms of the drug BuSpar, ending a four-month patent dispute with Bristol-Myers Squibb. US: Versign will keep the right to register dot-com names until 2007. It will give up control of dot-org after 2002 and submit dot-net for re-bidding in early 2006. The changes still need to be agreed by the US Commerce Department. US: Embattled song-swap company Napster has licensed revolutionary digital fingerprinting technology to help it filter out copyrighted songs from its service to comply with a federal court order. US: Federal antitrust enforcers are preparing civil charges against Schering-Plough and generic companies Upsher-Smith of Minneapolis, and the Lederle unit of American Home Products. Charges allege patent settlements between the companies including illegal payments of $90 million to delay a low-cost generic drug from reaching the market.

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

Pursuant to the binding Law on Trade Marks, one trade mark application can relate to one trade mark only. A trade mark can be registered in respect of an unlimited number of goods and services. In the case of colour trade marks, an application can relate to only one combination of colours.

The pharmaceutical industry has been given another month to sharpen its arguments as it challenges the South African government over patent rights. But it is also fighting against charities, the media and public opinion. Tabitha Parker reports

A ruling that has received wide public attention in the United States, even in the popular press, is the one that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) handed down on February 14 2001 in Amazon.com Inc v Barnesandnoble.com Inc. This ruling vacated a district court's preliminary injunction order preventing Barnes and Noble (BN) from continuing to offer its own so-called "one-click" method for ordering books and other goods online during the course of Amazon's suit asserting that the BN method infringes an Amazon method patent. Despite all the publicity accorded to the ruling, it rests upon very well-established law, widely availed of to defeat preliminary injunction motions in patent infringement suits throughout at least the twentieth century. Its claim to the degree of publicity it received rests upon the case's status as one of the earliest efforts to enforce a "business method" patent against an alleged infringer and not upon the novelty of the legal ruling.

BRAZIL: From March 6, the Brazilian agency responsible for the registration of domain names (FAPESP) will allow registration by foreign companies. Before that date, registration could only be made by local companies.

Due to growing importance of modern achievements of biotechnology in industry, agriculture and medicine, an adequate legal protection of IP rights in this field is one of the most vital issues world-wide (including in Russia) that needs to be solved for the benefit of public.