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The Australian Full Federal Court in Pinefair P/L v Bedford Industries Rehabilitation Association Inc has found that a patent´ s product claim may be infringed by a product that came into existence as part of a manufacturing process. The patent related to a garden edging product consisting of halved pine logs with an elongated band affixed along a flat rear face of the logs to hold the logs together. Pinefair´ s alleged infringing product connected the logs with an extruded plastic strip during manufacture, but sought to avoid the patent by the additional step of cutting the plastic strip at each log, so that the final product did not have the elongated band connected to each element.

A marketing war between rival vacuum cleaner brands is being dragged through courts across Europe, testing the limits of comparative advertising.

On January 26 this year, the public prosecutor of the City of Örebro, Sweden, Göran Edlund, ordered a search of a storeroom in an abandoned shoe-factory, in order to find evidence of tax evasion. No documents proving tax evasion were found during the search. Instead, the police found approximately 100,000 tee-shirts and sweatshirts printed with a variety of famous trade marks and brands. The garments were probably intended for sale at fairs and markets in Sweden during the coming summer.

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.

Industry organizations in the United States have begun to file submissions to the US Trade Representative as part of the annual Special 301 review.

South Africa has acceded to the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The accession procedure was completed on March 16 1999 with the result that an applicant for an international patent application (PCT) can now designate South Africa (ZA) as one of the countries in which the international patent application will be validated. Accordingly, it is no longer necessary for an applicant for an international patent application to file a separate national patent application in South Africa (in addition to the international patent application) in order to extend patent rights to the territory of South Africa. Instead, such an applicant can now cover South Africa merely by ticking an appropriate box on the application papers at the time of filing the international patent application.

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.

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:

Managing intellectual property has always been a headache in Russia. Way back in the USSR at the time of total control of everything, intellectual property along with all other things belonged to the State and the inventor did not have any right to the product of his labour. When the iron curtain fell, the pendulum swung to the other extreme. A rather liberal Patent Law was adopted in 1992. It provided that the inventor or his employer would own and dispose of his work at will. It also gave ample opportunities to the applicant to patent his inventions abroad and sell them if he chose to do so. There were no restrictions on where or what to patent which could jeopardize the security of the State. True, the Law contained provisions to the effect that there would be a special law on secret inventions. Unfortunately, that law has not seen light and there are not even signs of it ever being discussed at any forum.

The revised Japanese Design Law came into force on January 1 1999. The main changes are as follows: (1) Broader scope and stronger protection for industrial designs which exhibit creativity: