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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).

EU: The international trade committee of the European Parliament met with international trade bodies on January 18, as part of its consideration of an October European Commission draft regulation on compulsory licences for medicines intended for export to developing countries. The meeting focused on how the introduction of new IP rights in developing countries, in line with the TRIPs Agreement, would affect public health. UK: Rules to modernize the patent system were introduced in January. The Patents Act 2004, many parts of which came into effect on January 1, includes new provisions on costs and expenses in infringement proceedings, restrictions on filing abroad and remedies in entitlement proceedings. It also aims to bring more clarity to the vague area of compensation for employee-inventors. UK: The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry released its Digital Music Report 2005, concluding that digital music sites are taking off among consumers thanks to more legal online sites and portable listening devices such as Apple's iPod. The number of legal downloading sites increased to 230 in 2004, with consumers buying 200 million songs in 2004 compared with 20 million songs in 2003.