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On Sunday July 16, in Yokahama, Japan, the most significant event since the creation of the internet domain name system was played out. As a finale, the main protagonist, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, agreed to extend the number of top-level domain names (TLDs).

The signing of the US-Vietnam trade agreement on July 13 has been met with more than a little scepticism by industry observers and local IP practitioners.

A federal judge has ruled that Mylan Laboratories must be allowed to sell its generic copy of Bristol-Myers Squibb's highly profitable drug BuSpar.

Interferences are a relatively rare, but nonetheless integral, part of United States patent practice. For many years, patent applicants or patentees who performed their relevant research and development work outside the United States were limited to claiming the dates of their relevant patent applications filed under the Paris Convention, the benefit of which could be claimed pursuant to 35 USC § 119 as the date of conception and reduction to practice of an invention covered in a US patent application or patent held to "interfere" with another US application or patent. Given that such persons may now seek to prove prefiling dates of conception of an invention, or of actual reduction to practice thereof, when the pertinent work was done outside the United States, it has become important for counsellors and in-house advisers of non-US based entities to pay greater attention to interference law, especially as it relates to conception and actual reduction to practice, than they did when their prospective participation in an interference proceeding was hobbled, as noted above.

Jay Walker, already godfather to one of the most famous patents ever, could be on the verge of further controversy. The founder of Priceline.com has been testing a new business method which could dramatically increase the profits of fast-food restaurants. James Nurton reports

WIPO has turned the tables on multinational companies with the publication of a draft report on protecting traditional knowledge. The 320-page report covers owners of tradition-based literary, artistic or scientific intellectual activity.

Since the middle of the 18th century, tequila has been considered a traditional beverage in Mexico, first locally and afterwards obtaining the status of the representative beverage of our country, when in 1873 Cenobio Sauza began the exportation of the product to the United States.

David Balto, White & Case, Washington DC

Given the time that intellectual property proceedings usually take, and the insufficient expertise among the judges hearing the cases, in Colombia the parties to IP conflicts are increasingly resorting to alternative methods such as arbitration and conciliation.

On the eve of its implementation in the national judicial systems (July 31 2000), European Directive 98/44/EC of July 6 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions has led to heated discussions in the Netherlands. Earlier, on October 19 1998, the Dutch government had already requested the ECJ to declare the directive invalid, but no judgment has been rendered with respect to this request yet. Not until June this year rather late was the actual implementation of the directive finally discussed in the Dutch parliament. During these discussions, it turned out that a majority of parliament objected to the implementation of the directive, largely because the directive would give room for the patenting of living organisms. This would be contrary to fundamental ethical choices made in the Netherlands.