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Singapore is due to accede to the Geneva Act (1999) of the Hague Agreement during the first half of 2005, in line with the Registered Designs (Amendment) Act 2004 which came into force on January 1 2005. This will allow Singapore to meet its obligations under the European Free Trade Association-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (ESFTA).

You litigate inside the courtroom; you settle cases outside the courtroom. That's conventional wisdom. But, as the number of cases filed each year continues to increase, more and more courts are getting involved in helping the parties settle their dispute. This is a trend that is expected to continue and it is a development that should be embraced by litigants.

According to Section 10(1) of the German Patent Act, a patent has the effect that any third party that does not have the consent of the patentee is prevented from offering or supplying a component relating to an essential element of the invention. According to the recent Flügelrad decision of the German Supreme Court (X ZR 48/03 dated May 4 2004), in assessing what is an essential element of the invention, only components that have a functional interaction with other elements of the patented device can infringe the patent.

Neil Hobbs, IP lawyer at Virgin Enterprises Limited, explains how the company protects more than 2,500 domain names and reveals why it has decided to consolidate its registrations

On December 21 China's Supreme People's Court and the Procuratorate jointly issued an Interpretation on Various Issues Relating to the Handling of Criminal Actions on IPR Infringements (the Interpretation). This came into effect a day later on December 22.

'Generic Tide Is Rising' was a cover story that appeared in the September issue of Chemical & Engineering News in 2002. More and more it is said that the innovative pharmaceutical companies are losing market share, not only because their current blockbusters run out of patent protection, but also because the number of new drugs that should boost the profits of the innovators back to the high levels they are accustomed to is said to be very limited.

A number of recent cases have addressed the breadth of protection for patents in the UK, Germany and Japan. Ewan Nettleton, Alex Wilson, Julian Eberhardt and Hirokazu Honda examine the consequences for inventive improvements and ask how far international practice is harmonized

Fabrizio Miazzetto examines the issues litigants should consider when bringing proceedings before the new CTM and CD courts in Alicante and discusses the opportunities for rights owners to forum shop in Europe

Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

Suppliers to the public sector should note that confidentiality clauses in agreements with public authorities which allow disclosure of confidential information as required by law will permit disclosure by authorities under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).