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Tøyen tannlegevakt (TT) – a dental clinic – registered its logo consisting of a red cross containing four white As and a representation of a tooth in 2007. When becoming aware of the mark, the Norwegian Red Cross ordered TT to cease use because the mark was easily confused with the Red Cross emblem. When TT refused, Red Cross filed a complaint.

The coming few years will bring a halt to the dominance of big pharmaceutical companies, which are exposed to patents that will expire on more than $80 billion-worth of blockbuster drugs. A famous example is the patent expiry of Eli Lilly's anti-depressant drug, Prozac, which reportedly lost 73% of market share within two weeks of generic launch. Similarly, Pfizer's anti-depressant Zoloft, which lost patent exclusivity, showed a decline in revenues to $531 million in 2007, compared to $3.3 billion in 2005. However, Pfizer's bigger concern in the near future is when the patent for other famous drugs such as Lipitor and Viagra will expire.

Víctor Garrido of Dumont Bergman Bider discusses the efforts to apply a national innovation system in Mexico

Amended Rule 36 EPC on divisional applications has led to confusion. Ard Ellens of Nederlandsch Octrooibureau in the Netherlands provides a guide to the options available

Over the last few months, every week the local press has contained several articles on issues relating to consumer protection. Consumer Protection Day in March was an occasion for various events and initiatives to raise the profile of issues affecting consumers and to increase awareness of the rights of consumers – rights which are now enshrined in the Consumer Protection Law of 2008.

On May 13 2010, Attorney Ricardo R Blancaflor, newly appointed director general of the Intellectual Property Office (IPPhil), issued Office Order Number 84 entitled Policies and Guidelines on Counterfeit and Pirated Products. This Office Order mandates that all officials and employees of the IPPhil should respect IP rights and that they should not patronise counterfeit and pirated products. It also applies to visitors of the IPPhil, who shall be subject to inspection by the security guards. To implement the Office Order, the security guards at the entrances and exits of the IPPhil building are instructed to do the following:

Circular 22/2009/TT-BYT issued by the Ministry of Health, effective May 24 2010, has clarified certain issues related to IP rights and drug marketing approval in Vietnam.

The Icann Board last week brought the .xxx domain closer, approved four Chinese-language internationalised domains and raised the possibility of approving the new gTLD programme in December

Every company has external counsel, but in-house lawyers all have different ways of working with their private practice counterparts. Sam Mamudi talks to four trade mark chiefs to learn how they do it

E-commerce is booming in Japan, and it is inevitable that disputes over search-related advertising, meta-tags and sponsored links will arise. Alan N Sutin of Greenberg Traurig, LLP examines the lessons that can be learnt from recent cases in the US