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Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly relying on their brands to sustain sales on drugs that come off patent. Ingrid Hering examines how to build up brand recognition and prevent infringements

No recently decided US patent case has as great a potential for affecting the vast majority of presently existing and still-to-be issued US patents as that which will emerge from the US Supreme Court's impending review, in its upcoming 2001-2002 term, of the Federal Circuit's en banc decision in Festo Corp v Skoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co, Ltd, 234 F 3d 558 (Fed Cir 2000), certiorari granted, June 19 2001.

Mr Justice Laddie's judgment in Arsenal Football Plc v Matthew Reed could deal a serious blow to those engaged in the business of merchandising in the UK.

Michiel Rijskijk Will the international exhaustion rule be applicable in Europe in the near future, just as The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden knew it a long time ago in their respective trade mark laws? What could the consequences thereof be for industry, specifically the pharmaceutical industry? Case law in The Netherlands at the end of the 1950s provides that when goods protected by a trade mark have been brought on the market with the consent of the proprietor, the trade mark right in respect of that product is exhausted. This international exhaustion rule is also included in the Benelux Trade Mark Act of 1971. Under the influence of industry lobbying inter alia more voices were raised in the 1960s and 1970s demanding that the European market should be protected against parallel imports. The European Court of Justice on October 31 1971 in the Centrafarm Winthrop case (C-16/74) for the first time ruled that the proprietor of a trade mark is not permitted to prohibit a product being brought onto the market in one EEC member state if it was brought on the market in another EEC member state with the consent of the proprietor.

Music Broadcast Pvt, the plaintiff, is a company that has been granted permission by the Indian government to start FM radio stations in various cities. Phonographic Performance Ltd, the defendant, is a collecting society administering the public performance rights of publishers of sound recordings in India. Over the period of a year, Music Broadcast Pvt has invested huge sums of money, and has applied for, and obtained, all the necessary government clearances for commencing private radio broadcasts. The company has also obtained a licence to publicly perform musical works from the Indian Performers Right Society (IPRS), a collecting society which administers the public performance rights of composers and authors in India. The only remaining licence that was required to be obtained to commence the broadcasting of music was a licence from the defendant.

A WIPO panel has rejected a complaint from fashion label Giorgio Armani that its domain name was stolen by a Canadian man.

The month in words

Among the former USSR countries only Latvia and Lithuania provide for the extension of European patents. Vladimir Anohin and Voldemars Osmans of Agency Tria Robit in Riga analyze the benefits of such protection

Proposed changes to licensing rules in China are expected soon. Shaojie Chi of CCPIT in Beijing examines the practical effects of the amendments

Japanese patent law allows applicants to file so-called product by process claims. But the scope of such claims can be complicated to interpret. Yoshiaki Muto of Tokyo Aoyama Law Office – Baker & McKenzie in Tokyo reviews recent cases on this question