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Brazilian reform provokes alarm

US: A federal judge in San Francisco ruled December 7 that a patent for DNA analysis owned by Swiss biotechnology company Hoffman-La Roche was obtained by deliberately misleading the USPTO and is invalid. US District Judge Vaughn Walker upheld a challenge by Promega which argued that scientists got the patent in 1990 through false claims. Those scientists worked for Cetus, which sold rights to the patent to Hoffman La Roche in 1991. The patented substance is called Taq DNA Polymerase. Cetus inventors had convinced the patent office that they had a substance better than those developed in the 1980s. Hoffman-La Roche is appealing, and contends that the ruling invalidates the patent for only one form of Taq, and not for the more common and lucrative recombinant Taq.

José Carlos Erdozain of Gomez-Acebo & Pombo in Madrid offers a Spanish perspective on how the law is coping with the Internet revolution

Drew & Napier look at how effective a weapon trade mark law is for doing battle in cyberspace

Alexander Vogele, Partner, Andreas Grohn and Michael Pinkus, Attorney at KPMG Frankfurt look at e-commerce and permanent establishments, and the economic connection between them.

Trade mark dilution is an ever-expanding concept in the US.

Innovation has been neglected ever since perestroika started in Russia in 1985. The blow had such an effect that innovation activities have not regained their former strength to this day. It is true that basic things have been done. After the emergence of private enterprise, the Law on Inventions was adopted in 1991 in the USSR and after its collapse, the then Russian law makers were surprisingly quick to pass a Patent Law in 1992.

Most EU countries have the experimental use exemption corresponding to Article 27(b) CPC in their patent acts. It states that: "The right conferred by the Community patent does not cover acts done for experimental purposes relating to the subject matter of the patented invention.

The EU Copyright Directive and the E-Commerce Directive contradict each other on the question of ISP liability, argue Mark Owen and Richard Penfold of Harbottle & Lewis in London

The rapid expansion of e-commerce is forcing countries to look again at how to regulate trade and intellectual property. By Fernando Becerril of Becerril, Coca & Becerril, Mexico City