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Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline's proposed scheme to restrict exports of cheap medicines from Spain to other parts of Europe is illegal under EU competition rules, according to the European Commission. On May 8, Mario Monti, the EU competition commissioner, ended three years of deliberation by banning the dual-pricing scheme claiming it interfered with the Community's objective of integrating national markets and restricting price competition.

The Brussels Court of Appeal recently delivered the first judgment in a Belgian torpedo case. Remco EP de Ranitz of Arnold & Siedsma in The Hague examines the implications of the decision for patent owners and the future of the Belgian torpedo strategy

Japan’s domain name system has seen fundamental changes in the past year. Yasuyoshi Goto and Ari Staiman, of Tokyo Aoyama Aoki/Baker & McKenzie in Tokyo, examine the recently introduced changes

Mr Justice Laddie's judgment in Arsenal Football Plc v Matthew Reed could deal a serious blow to those engaged in the business of merchandising in the UK.

Japanese patent law allows applicants to file so-called product by process claims. But the scope of such claims can be complicated to interpret. Yoshiaki Muto of Tokyo Aoyama Law Office – Baker & McKenzie in Tokyo reviews recent cases on this question

As the first patent decisions under the 1994 Patent Act are made, Ella Cheong & G Mirandah in Singapore review the approaches the Courts are taking

Ingrid Hering, London

A decision of special interest to the biotechnology community, Hitzeman v Rutter, 58 USPQ 2d 1161 (Fed Cir 2001), was delivered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC or Federal Circuit) on March 21. The case arose as an appeal from the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Board of Appeals and Interferences and it involved a determination of who is entitled to receive a US patent covering the particulate hepatitis B surface antigen produced in yeast cells, which is an effective human vaccine against hepatitis B. Prior to this invention, it was doubted by informed scientists that satisfactory hepatitis B surface antigen for vaccine purposes could be achieved using recombinant yeast cells as host cells, since bacterial host cells transformed with DNA encoding the hepatitis B surface antigen had been shown to produce a non-particulate antigen having no capability to impart immunity to hepatitis B in humans.

Tony Samuel, in the third of three articles on intellectual property value issues, considers some of the questions arising from the enormous growth in the worth of media and sponsorship rights in sport

Patent infringement litigation involves a large number of uncertainties. Alexander I Poltorak and Paul J Lerner reveal how to calculate the risk involved