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As from January 1 2004 essential changes will be introduced in the Polish structure of jurisdiction and two Acts will come into force - the Act on the Structure of Common Courts of Law and the Act on Administrative Procedure. Administrative jurisdiction will be a two-tiered one. Up to now the only court in control of administrative issues has been the Supreme Administrative Court. As from next year there will also be regional administrative courts. The necessity to introduce two-tiered administrative jurisdiction derives from the provisions of the new Constitution of the Republic of Poland adopted in 1997. These legal changes will exert substantial influence on issues related to industrial property protection in Poland, including trade marks. Along with these Acts entering into force, the Law on Industrial Property that applies, among others, to trade mark protection will also change.

In a judgment handed down in the case of Class International v SmithKline Beecham on 28 August 2003, the Court of Appeal at The Hague posed six preliminary questions for the ECJ. Our firm handles this case on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline.

The Malaysian government in its efforts to encourage Malaysian industries to conduct more R&D and to promote Malaysian products and services overseas has introduced several incentives in the 2004 budget. Some of the salient features in this respect are:

Users of the patent system want change, but politically there are still tensions between Europe and the US, and between the positions of developed and developing countries, argues Ivan B Ahlert

Claims such as "the number one" and "the best" are among those frequently made by advertisers for their products and services. Timothy Pinto examines what such claims mean and whether or not they are legal

The Singapore-based company and trade mark applicant, Future Enterprises, has for the second time in less than a year faced opposition to its three marks comprising the words "MacTea", "MacNoodles" and "MacChocolate" together with a "device of an eagle" in class 30.

Changes to Japan's patent law in the early months of 2004 will see lower fees in some cases and the abolition of the opposition system. The amendments to the invalidation appeal procedures are open to abuse and could end up harming patentees' rights, warn John Tessensohn and Shusaku Yamamoto

Worldwide forum on trade mark protection, Geneva, Switzerland, December 1-2. Details at www.inta.org

Europe must learn from the mistakes of the US and consider carefully the effect of stifling development before giving the green light to software patents, warns Brian Kahin

The European Commission proposes to make radical changes to technology licensing within Europe. The proposed new Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (TTBER) is presented as a business-friendly liberalization of the European technology transfer regime. However, many commentators feel that these proposals will stifle technology transfer, considerably reduce the value of intellectual property rights, and may cause Europe to fall further behind the United States in the development of new technology industries.