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ICANN's new system for settling domain name disputes is already making an impact. In just a couple of months, four victories have been scored by trade mark owners seeking the cyberspace rights to their trade name.

In a final report on March 17, the WTO has given its ruling on claims brought by the EU against Canada's patent regime.

If a major corporation appends its famous house mark to a registered mark owned by another party, is there a conflict? In the appeal case of Registrar of Trade Marks v Woolworths Ltd, the Full Federal of Australia, by a margin of two to one, allowed an application for WOOLWORTHS METRO to be accepted, notwithstanding several earlier METRO marks each of which related to similar goods or services. The Court, at trial and appeal, rejected the Registrar's contention that the marks were deceptively similar.

Recently, as part of the national drive towards becoming a regional IT and e-learning hub, a research and education centre at the National University of Singapore known as the Institute of Systems Science (ISS) launched what it claims to be the world´ s first virtual institute. The ISS took about one and a half years to develop the necessary software. It is intended that the virtual institute will serve, among other things, to re-train graduates for the growing infocomm industry. Plans are also being made to offer courses to local students and to provide courses in languages other than English for students in other countries in the region.

The internet has thrown up new challenges to IP regimes. Dedar Singh Gill and Rama S Tiwari, of Drew & Napier in Singapore, explain the new provisions covering protection in Singapore

Roger Carlile, of KPMG in Dallas, explains the merits of the two methods for quantifying damages in the US

Sergio L Olivares, Jr and Alejandro Luna, of Olivares & Cia in Mexico City, examine the usefulness of new procedures enabling civil judges to award damages in IP cases

Customs can be a powerful weapon against pirates in Latvia. Now it is up to rights owners to test the procedures, say Vladimir Anohin and Victoria Streltsova, of Agency Tria Robit in Riga

Litigation has taken off in the Czech Republic in the past 10 years, throwing up some interesting disputes. Zdenka Prádná, of Patentservis Praha, Ltd in Prague, examines a recent case concerning a utility model and an industrial design

Paul Tauchner, of Vossius & Partner in Munich, examines the scope of patent protection available under the doctrine of equivalence in Germany