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Respect for IP rights in China will come under severe strain once the country joins the WTO, as infringers benefit from open markets. But China will not be lacking in assistance from overseas in its attempts to enforce IP rights. Ralph Cunningham reports

? JAPAN: Gene Logic and Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, the Japanese subsidiary of Amersham Pharmacia Biotech Ltd, announced an alliance granting Amersham distribution rights to market and sell Gene Logic's products to the Japanese market. Financial terms were not disclosed.

? CHINA: Proctor and Gamble has won its trade mark infringement case against Shanghai Chenxuan Zhineng Science and Technology Development Co for registering the name safeguard.com.cn which P&G registered in China in 1976.

Intellectual property management has, historically, been concerned with protection issues. In the first of three articles on IP value issues, Tony Samuel explains why value is the prime reason for IP protection

New Decision improves protection

Two recent US cases will help to define the rights of copyright holders and service providers on the internet. Alan Lewine and Jay Westermeier explain

? Thailand: Rouse & Co International has opened a Bangkok office. At the beginning of October, the firm hired Fabrice Mattei from Bangkok firm Monkolnavin to head up the new office. The firm now has nearly 800 staff in offices in eight countries.

As patents become a cornerstone of world business, systems are under strain and attorneys are facing unprecedented challenges. How will the world cope? James Nurton and Tabitha Parker report

Interferences are a relatively rare, but nonetheless integral, part of United States patent practice. For many years, patent applicants or patentees who performed their relevant research and development work outside the United States were limited to claiming the dates of their relevant patent applications filed under the Paris Convention, the benefit of which could be claimed pursuant to 35 USC § 119 as the date of conception and reduction to practice of an invention covered in a US patent application or patent held to "interfere" with another US application or patent. Given that such persons may now seek to prove prefiling dates of conception of an invention, or of actual reduction to practice thereof, when the pertinent work was done outside the United States, it has become important for counsellors and in-house advisers of non-US based entities to pay greater attention to interference law, especially as it relates to conception and actual reduction to practice, than they did when their prospective participation in an interference proceeding was hobbled, as noted above.

On the eve of its implementation in the national judicial systems (July 31 2000), European Directive 98/44/EC of July 6 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions has led to heated discussions in the Netherlands. Earlier, on October 19 1998, the Dutch government had already requested the ECJ to declare the directive invalid, but no judgment has been rendered with respect to this request yet. Not until June this year rather late was the actual implementation of the directive finally discussed in the Dutch parliament. During these discussions, it turned out that a majority of parliament objected to the implementation of the directive, largely because the directive would give room for the patenting of living organisms. This would be contrary to fundamental ethical choices made in the Netherlands.