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With new legislation proposed around the world, there is increased focus on trade secrets protection. All the more reason to get your corporate policies in order now, argue Robert Williams, Warren Wayne and Toby Bond

Elžbieta Bienkowska, formerly deputy prime minister of Poland, is to be the new EU Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SME Commissioner. Her portfolio covers most of the work previously handled by the Enterprise and Industry and Internal Market and Services commissioners. Notably, she will take over most IP matters from former Commissioner Michel Barnier of France, including oversight of OHIM and responsibility for the proposed trade mark reforms and the work on the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court. However, copyright work will fall under Commissioner Günther Oettinger of Germany, who is in charge of Communications Networks, Content and Technology.

Richard Vary, global head of litigation at Nokia, spoke at Managing IP's European Patent Reform Forum in Paris. Here he tells us the likely impact of the Unified Patent Court on global competitiveness, patent trolls and litigation strategies

The Full Federal Court, in D'Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc, has unanimously decided to specifically diverge from the opinions of the US Supreme Court in the corresponding US Myriad case, in holding that isolated genetic/biological material can be patentable subject matter.

With the recent revisions to the PRC Trade Mark Law that took effect on May 1 2014, it's helpful to review some best practices in China trade mark prosecution, particularly in light of changes in TMO practices following the revisions to the law. Trade mark squatting in China remains rampant, and for companies big and small, it often is a matter of time before your brand is pirated. Filing trade mark applications is usually less expensive than filing trade mark oppositions or buying brands from pirates. So it's best to file early, and well before launching a brand in the PRC.

In a recent order, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has fined almost all major car manufacturers in India, for restricting the expansion of the spare parts and independent repairers segment of the economy, at the cost of consumers, service providers and dealers. While similar decisions have previously been issued across the globe, this is the first in India and contains important analyses on the overlap between IP rights and competition law.

Disclosures on the internet may form state of the art before the EPO under Article 54(2) EPC. Internet disclosures are a particularly useful source of information for inventions in telecommunications and computer-implemented inventions. However, internet disclosures have proven difficult to handle, given the ease with which the internet can be updated and changed, and an inherent unreliability around the dates on which information was made available.

Austrian patent law accepts the ownership of patents (and other IP rights) of several natural and/or legal persons as co–owners principally but refers to general civil law all questions concerning the rights of the individual owners with regard to the other co–owners.

Although Community trade marks cover all EU member states and the relevant public consists in the present case of professionals and average European consumers, Spanish ladies were the deciding factor in the OHIM opposition case at issue between a Canadian trade mark applicant and a German opponent.

Genentech, the plaintiff, is the patentee of a patent for an invention titled "vascular endothelial cell growth factor antagonists". Genentech filed an application for the registration of patent term extension in relation to the patent asserting that Genentech obtained an approval of partial changes in manufacturing approval (the disposition), which added a new dosage and administration of its medicine Avastin, whose general name is bevacizumab (the medicine). Regarding the medicine, there was a prior disposition that differs only in dosage and administration (see figure for the differences between the prior disposition and the disposition).