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Today’s judgment in L’Oréal v eBay is unlikely to lead to major changes in how the online marketplace operates or polices counterfeits, a spokesman told Managing IP

Oakleigh IP Services has added Alan Venner, formerly senior partner of the patent and trade mark attorneys Venner Shipley.

Managing IP profiles Icann chairman Steve Crocker, who was elected to the post on June 23 at a meeting in Singapore

The Board passed a resolution to approve the latest version of the Applicant Guidebook on the morning of June 20 by a majority of 13 to one, with two abstentions Icann's Board of Directors approved the opening up of the internet's domain name system to allow new generic top-level domains in Singapore last month. Despite scepticism from the industry and criticism from government representatives, the internet will have a new architecture from next year.

Zoe Lofgren James Sensenbrenner Lamar Smith At the end of June the US House of Representatives passed a patent reform bill six years in the making, joining the Senate in passing legislation shifting the US to a first-to-file system. The impact (see box) has not been altered fundamentally by the various amendments, but their debate was certainly controversial. The bipartisan vote of 304-117 featured an extremely rare re-vote and an unrelated disruption by protestors.

The Supreme Court has agreed for a second time to hear Mayo v Prometheus, a case that tests the application of the In re Bilski ruling on patentable subject matter to diagnostic methods. Prometheus' patent specifically covers methods of determining the proper dosage of thiopurine drugs in patients. Following its decision in Bilski last year, the High Court immediately granted certiorari in the case and vacated and remanded the decision back to the Federal Circuit to reconsider the facts in light of Bilski. But in December last year, the Federal Circuit decided in favour of Prometheus for the second time, with little departure from its original reasoning. Mayo is now arguing that the Federal Circuit's decision is inconsistent with the Supreme Court's earlier precedents, with the reasoning of the three dissenting Justices in LabCorp v Metabolite and with Bilski. All eyes are on Justice Stephen Breyer, the remaining dissenter in LabCorp, who dubbed the diagnostic method patent at issue in that case "abstract" and "no more than an instruction to read some numbers in light of medical knowledge".

Yan An, Lenovo IP managers who want their bosses to treat them as professionals need to rethink the way they manage their departments, according to Yan An of Lenovo. Yan, director of brand assets management within the emerging markets group at Lenovo, was speaking to over 300 in-house counsel at Managing IP's China International Forum in Beijing about his experiences at the Chinese computer hardware company.

Last month the US Supreme Court handed down three decisions in patent cases. In some cases they maintained the status quo, in others they created new precedent, but all are significant say Eileen McDermott and Karen Bolipata

Revisions to European trade mark legislation are on track to be published in October, as the European Commission is expected to complete its consultation over the summer. In a hearing with users at the end of May, the European Commission indicated that it would be flexible on some controversial points of the Max Planck study on trade marks in Europe.

"The piracy situation is pretty much under control," according to Albert Ho, head of the Intellectual Property Investigation Bureau, Hong Kong Customs. He claims that there are no more conventional small shops selling pirated optical discs in the territory. Ho said this success is largely thanks to the territory's more aggressive approach in fighting counterfeits by using innovative enforcement strategies and heightening surveillance. In the last 18 months, the Customs and Excise Department has widened the application of a conspiracy charge. Two or more people organising or coordinating an infringing act on at least two accounts or occasions, without having to possess the fake goods, constitutes a crime under the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance. It is a response to the increased number of vendors who have tried to elude punishment by selling counterfeits in private showrooms and catalogue stores. Two cases are being prosecuted under the Ordinance using the new enforcement strategy. Customs has also applied stricter enforcement at Ladies' Market, a well-known tourist area that was listed in the USTR's notorious markets list earlier this year.