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Plant breeders' rights, also known as plant variety protection, are a form of sui generis IP rights designed specifically to protect new varieties of plants. Plant breeders' rights offer legal protection to breeders for the investment they make in breeding and developing new varieties.

The substantive amendments to the Patents Act, encompassed in the Intellectual Property Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act, have recently entered into force.

Since the enactment of Argentine patent legislation in 1995 (complying with the TRIPs standards), the number of patent applications has increased consistently. In view of this, the Argentine Patent and Trademark Office (INPI) issued a set of resolutions that greatly increased the speed of prosecution.

In one of its recent judgments, the Austrian Supreme Court had to decide on the likelihood of confusion between the word mark Sinupret registered (among other things) for pharmaceutical products and the sign Sinuvex used for pharmaceutical products.

Three committees in the European Parliament are due to vote this week on the controversial anti-counterfeiting treaty ACTA

Jochen Pagenberg, a former member of an EU Commission-appointed Expert Committee on the future patent court, has told the EU president that the unitary patent package due to be discussed by member states today is an “unworkable solution”

The Court of Appeal in London has ruled that Samsung’s claim for a declaration of non-infringement of an Apple design by its Galaxy tablet need not be stayed

At the end of April, the Philippines deposited its instrument of accession to join the Madrid Protocol on international trade marks. It will become the 86th member of the system. But joining Madrid threatens to undermine the trade mark prosecution business of many domestic law firms. Managing IP sat down with the head of the IP Office of the Philippines, Ricardo Blancaflor (right), during the INTA Annual Meeting last month to discuss domestic opposition to Madrid, as well as his anti-counterfeiting work and amendments to the IP Code.

A proposed change to the law in Taiwan calls for up to five years imprisonment or fines of up to NT$10 million ($338,724) – more where there is intent to use the trade secrets abroad. This and several other proposed changes are in response to complaints from Taiwanese companies that the current law, which has been in effect since 1996, is no longer enough to deter trade secret theft.

Members of Congress voiced concerns last month about the transitional business methods programme mandated by the America Invents Act, calling it "gross unfairness" and special interest legislation. The first oversight hearing on implementation of the AIA included testimony by USPTO director David Kappos, intense questioning by members of the House and a panel of stakeholders representing various sectors. To date, seven provisions of the AIA are already in effect, and notices of rulemaking have been published for nine others. Some congress members voiced concern about the business methods review programme, which would allow business methods meeting certain criteria to be challenged and reviewed by the USPTO under a special process. The intent is to weed out weak patents in this area, which many say are common. But Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California, who voted to strike the section relating to covered business methods from the bill, said that the provision blatantly favours the financial services industry at the expense of innovation. She and others fear that the provision is so broad as to put all financial-related inventions at risk, discouraging innovation in the area and disproportionately benefiting financial services companies, who will avoid having to license the technology.