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The Madras High Court, in January this year, admitted a special petition under the Constitution of India (a writ petition) challenging the constitutional validity of the provisions establishing the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The IPAB, constituted to take over erstwhile functions of the High Courts in India, is the only statutory appellate body for certain decisions of the Intellectual Property Offices in India.

Judge Colin Birss of the Patents County Court (PCC) in London has handed down a judgment, which prevented the now wound-up law firm ACS:Law and company MediaCAT from discontinuing proceedings against 27 defendants they accused of downloading copyrighted pornographic films. Birss was unhappy with how the two had proceeded up to this point, including the fact that MediaCAT did not represent the owners of the infringed material, and wrote: "The advantage of discontinuing as opposed to applying to amend is unwarranted in that it avoids judicial scrutiny of the underlying basis for wider campaign orchestrated by MediaCAT and ACS:Law to generate revenue..." The claimant MediaCAT was a company with a contract with Sheptonhurst, perhaps among others, which owns copyright in the films. Both MediaCAT and Sheptonhurst entered into agreement that would see ACS:Law take 65% of revenue generated from the letter-writing campaign.

Galel Yassin, an Arab resident of the Palestinian-administered territories imported cheap training shoes from China retailing for about £5 a pair. The shoes included four parallel diagonal stripes on each side. Israel Customs seized the goods, which Adidas claimed were infringing its famous three-stripe logo. The importer offered to add a line crossing through the four stripes, or a big cross on top; the solution to be implemented before the shoes were released from the docks. Adidas rejected both compromises.

The Customs surveillance service in Italy and in the EU was set up under EU Regulation 1383/03. Its purpose is to counter the spread of counterfeiting by boosting border checks.

Norway (in addition to Finland) only accepted product patents on active ingredients in medicaments from January 1 1992. Prior to this date only "analogous method of preparation" type of claims where accepted. This means that we still have active patents in Norway comprising such claims until the end of 2011 and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) until the end of 2016 (July 2017 if pediatric extensions are included).

February 15 2011 marks the implementation of expedited patent examination in Malaysia by the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO), under the Malaysian Patents Act 1983 subject to the Patents (Amendment) Regulations 2011. Apart from bringing a large number of patent examiners of various technical expertises to overcome the backlog of pending patent applications in Malaysia, the introduction of expedited examination is one step to reduce patent pendency by expediting and accelerating allowance and issuance of a patent application.

Bucharest Court has recently rejected, in the first procedural phase, the action filed by the producer of Rafaello white-chocolate pralines covered in coconut against the distributor of Lumar wafers in Romania, for lacking grounds. Lumar wafers have a spherical shape, are filed with cream and coated in coconut.

On December 15 2010 the Swiss discounter Denner commenced the sale of capsules containing ground coffee with a similar appearance to Société des Produits Nestlé's Nespresso-branded capsules. Denner advertised its capsules as being compatible with Nespresso coffee machines, and used the advertising slogans "Denner – was suscht?" ("– quoi d'autre?"; "– cosa sennò?"), these expressions being Swiss-German, French and Italian translations of the English phrase "what else?"

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has issued a clarification on the issue of second medical use claim practice in Singapore. On September 22 2010, IPOS released an Examination Guide to Singapore law and practice for contract examiners of pending Singapore applications, being one of the Austrian, Danish or Hungarian Patent Offices. The Examination Guide provides, amongst other things, a section on the allowability of purpose-limited product claims when used for claiming subject matter relating to a second or further medical use of a known substance or composition.

The TIPO recently revised the procedural examining guidelines regarding the principles governing patent applications, with the revision taking effect on January 1 2011 and applying to all pending applications that are undergoing formal examination. Under to the revision, the "true" applicant of a patent application must be established in order to obtain an effective filing date.