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Paraguay’s new patent law is effective as of January this year. Cristóbal González, an attorney at the Patent Department of BERKEMEYER Attorneys & Counselors in Asunción, examines some contentious aspects of the new legislation

BRAZIL: Merck slashed prices of two AIDS drugs, just days after threatening to take Brazil's state-owned pharmaceutical firm Far-Manguinhos to court for violating the patent on an AIDS drug. Brazil has agreed to halt its plans to challenge the patent. CHINA: Cable TV, the sole provider of pay-TV programmes in China, is urging the Chinese government to outlaw the possession of unauthorized decoders openly on sale in Shenzhen. The Broadcasting Ordinance forbids the manufacture and sale of decoders but does not forbid unauthorized viewing. CHINA: Philips Electronics is to invest $1 in a new assembly and test plant in China. CHINA: A senior manager of the Unilever group is in custody after being accused of helping a local firm to produce fake Unilever products. CHINA: The government is to pass legislation to extend copyright protection to cover the internet, and bring its legislation in to line with developed countries. CHINA: People in Hebei in China will be rewarded up to 10% of the amount of the fines imposed if they report the production or sale of fake or inferior goods to anti-counterfeiting departments. CZECH REPUBLIC: Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar, which has a long-running trade mark dispute with Anheuser-Busch, has relinquished rights to the Budweiser name in the US. Budvar will adopt Czechvar as the brand name for its product in the American beer market. JAPAN: The first dispute over internet domain names in an Asian alphabet has ruled in favour of Japanese Pharmaceutical company Sankyo. WIPO ordered the immediate transfer of the two-character Japanese name which corresponds to sankyo.com. SWEDEN: From May 7, Skriptor, changs its name to Compu-Mark Nordic for its trade mark searching activities but will function under the Skriptor name for its name creation activities. UK: Three people were convicted for their part in a multi-million pound software counterfeit scam to defraud Microsoft. The fraudsters received jail sentences of 10 years. US: Abbott Laboratories plans to sell its two AIDS drugs at no profit in sub-Saharan Africa. The drugs will be sold for less than $1000 each. In the US they sell for $7,100. US: EMI and Bertelsmann joined together to launch a new subscription-based music service on the web called MusicNet. RealNetworks is bringing its internet media technology into the partnership. MusicNet will be available later this year. The companies will license the platform to companies wanting to sell music subscription services on the web including Napster. US: Mylan Laboratories and Watson Pharmaceuticals received approval from US regulators to market generic forms of the drug BuSpar, ending a four-month patent dispute with Bristol-Myers Squibb. US: Versign will keep the right to register dot-com names until 2007. It will give up control of dot-org after 2002 and submit dot-net for re-bidding in early 2006. The changes still need to be agreed by the US Commerce Department. US: Embattled song-swap company Napster has licensed revolutionary digital fingerprinting technology to help it filter out copyrighted songs from its service to comply with a federal court order. US: Federal antitrust enforcers are preparing civil charges against Schering-Plough and generic companies Upsher-Smith of Minneapolis, and the Lederle unit of American Home Products. Charges allege patent settlements between the companies including illegal payments of $90 million to delay a low-cost generic drug from reaching the market.

Jane Mutimear, Bird & Bird, London, Vice president of the Intellectual Property Constituency of ICANN

Oscar M Becerril, of Becerril, Coca & Becerril, SC in Mexico City, reviews the various options available for protecting container designs in Mexico

The Ukraine's reputation as the world's most persistent IP violator was confirmed in this year's US Trade Representative Special 301 Report. The Ukraine, identified as a Priority Foreign Country on March 12, almost certainly faces trade sanctions at the end of June unless it takes radical moves to address its severe IP problems.

Has the European Court of Justice given the green light to parallel imports into Europe? Tesco says yes; Levi’s says no. Many lawyers say it is a bit more complicated than that. Tabitha Parker reports

The Advocate General’s Opinion in the Davidoff and Levi’s case was welcomed by both brand owners and parallel importers. David Rose analyzes the Opinion and suggests that brand owners have slightly more to be pleased about

Questel•Orbit reveal how to do comprehensive and precise prior art searches using the European Patent Office’s ECLA codes and the USPTO’s patent classifications

A recent EPO decision has challenged the conventional exclusion on double patenting. Neil Thomson asks where the decision leaves EPO practice, and what impact it will have on proceedings in the UK

Two of Asia's biggest names in IP have joined together to form a new specialized practice in Singapore. IP law firm Ella Cheong & G Mirandah and patent and trade mark attorneys Spruson & Ferguson Pte Ltd, the Singapore branch of Australia's Spruson & Ferguson, will be launched formally on June 6. But the new firm, Ella Cheong Mirandah & Sprusons, is already open for business. The link between the two Singapore firms was announced during the AIPPI congress in Melbourne in the last week of March. It is expected that all staff from Sprusons's Singapore office and from Ella Cheong & G Mirandah will join the new set-up. Cheong is retiring as a partner of Wilkinson & Grist, the Hong Kong law firm, and will chair Ella Cheong Mirandah & Sprusons.