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In January this year Estonia adopted several amendments to the laws regulating the protection of intellectual property and in particular the sanctions for the infringement of intellectual property rights. The amendments had been due to the need both to solve the problems arising during the implementation of these laws thus far and harmonizing the laws with EC Directives in this field. All the amendments are designed to make the fight against pirated and counterfeit goods more effective and in this way to prevent any further distribution of counterfeit goods in Estonia.

GERMANY: Nicolai von Funer has become a partner of Von Funer Ebbinghaus Finck Hano in Munich. The firm has also opened an office in Uluaanbaatar in Outer Mongolia: Euormarkpat Mongolia Ltd PO Box 58 Baga Toiruu 31 Ulaanbaatar 46 Mongolia Tel: +976 1 31 30 97 Fax: +976 1 32 55 87 E-mail: monpatent@magicnet.mn

Franchising is one of the most effective means of exploiting intellectual property. As in any exploitation of intellectual property, an infrastructure that enables successful protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights is crucial. Singapore and Malaysia both afford a strong intellectual property regime and are ideal for franchises to thrive. However, the franchising concept involves more than just protection of intellectual property rights. There are other important issues that must be considered, in particular, an environment that nurtures the franchise industry and the relationship between franchisor, franchisee and third parties. Singapore, or more specifically, the Singapore Trade Development Board (TDB), is focusing on nurturing the franchise industry in Singapore. It hopes to achieve at least 200 home-grown franchises and 165 foreign franchises by the year 2005. The blueprint includes the following new initiatives:

A new law (No 334/December 31 1998) granting patent protection in Romania for new plant varieties is to enter into force on April 1 1999. From that date, the previous regulations regarding the protection of plant varieties, as stipulated in the Romanian Patent Law 64/1991, will be repealed. Furthermore, the new law enunciates that patent applications filed according to the Patent Law 64/1991, having as subject matter a new plant variety or hybrid, and for which no Notice of Allowance or Rejection will have been issued by April 1 1999, will be solved (finalized) in accordance with the new law 334/1998.

Germany overturns colour practice

The Japan Supreme Court handed down the first decision concerning standards to be used in recognizing the gist of a claimed invention in the landmark March 1991 case involving the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) and the German company Boehringer-Mannheim.

According to EC Directives on Telecommunications, member states are obliged to adapt tariffs towards real costs. In Spain, the compliance with these Directives implies the reduction of tariffs for long distance calls (both national and international), and the increase of tariffs for local calls and of the initial access quote. According to Telefónica, the increase of the initial access quote is necessary in order to finance the so-called initial access deficit (which is the difference between the amount obtained by Telefónica for the installation of a line, and the amount that it really costs) that it has to endure at the present time. Although the Spanish government adopted measures for tariff re-balancing in the month of August (by means of increasing urban calls and the initial access quote), Telefónica considered that this increase was not sufficient in order to cover the real costs and claimed new increases, which the government opposed because of their impact on the inflation rate. This attitude has motivated the complaint filed before the European Commission, who has established the deadline for the Spanish government to file its allegations on February 11.

The German Federal Supreme Court recently issued a decision on colour marks (Farbmarke gelb/schwarz, December 10 1998), which has ended a controversy in Germany. According to this decision, non-contoured definite colours or compositions of colours are registrable as trade marks.

The conditions for obtaining a patent registration in any country of the Andean Community are: novelty (not in the state of the art), inventive level (non-obviousness) and industrial application. Article 2 of Andean Decision 344 (enforceable in Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia) sets out the conditions for novelty which have given rise to discussions in view of the lack of clarity of its writing.

Austria A L 1 (2) Dr Thomas M Haffner Vienna ? 2 (3) Patnentwalte Kliment Vienna ? 3 (1) Sonn Pawloy Weinzinger & Wolfram Vienna ? 4 (-) DI Berger Vienna ? 5 (4) Kopecky & Schwarz Vienna ?