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They have a saying in the north of England, where IP lawyer Anthony Gold plies his trade: "Where there's muck, there's brass."

A Bill amending the present Czech Patents Act No 527/90 was discussed in detail in the Patent Yearbook 2000. To our satisfaction the Bill was passed and entered into force on May 10 2000, as Act 116/2000, amending some Acts on Industrial Property Rights. For the purposes of this international briefing, I will cite the most important changes:

According to the Benelux Trade Marks Act, the owner of a trade mark can in principle not prohibit the use of his trade mark in respect of goods that have been put into circulation within the European Economic Area either by himself or with his permission. (exhaustion principle). This means that in principle the owner of a trade mark right cannot invoke this exclusive title in respect of the further trade in goods originating from him. The Benelux Court of Justice has recently explained the exhaustion principle in more detail in its Kipling/GB Unie judgment (The Benelux Court of Justice, December 6 2000).

Chiron has won the latest round in its marathon battle with Roche over biotechnology patents. On May 18, the Landgericht(district court) in Dusseldorf, ruled that Roche's Amplicor HIV PCR tests infringed Chiron's European patent number 181 150.

China faces five years of the most crucial economic reforms since it launched its "open door" policy in 1978 after the US Congress approved permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) on May 24.

Californian lawyer William Levin has reacted angrily to a judge's ruling that he acted "unethically" in a high profile trade mark litigation case. In the ruling on May 23, US district court judge Lourdes G Baird overturned a record $143 million damages award against Pfizer due to attorney misconduct by Levin & Hawes, which represented British medical company Trovan.

In the rapidly developing software market questions often arise regarding proper protection of program names. Of course, program names can be registered as trade marks. On the other hand, many software developers are not aware of the fact that program names may enjoy protection in Germany as titles of works. Titles of works are defined as designations of printed publications, cinematographic works, musical and dramatic works, or other comparable works which, according to German case law, include computer programs.

Brazil has thrown off its poor reputation for protecting trade marks. Rodrigo Caiuby Novaes, of Clarke, Modet & Co in Rio de Janeiro, reveals how the new industrial property law has transformed registration practice

The past decade has seen important changes in Europe’s trade mark regime. Peter Verhaag, of Arnold & Siedsma in The Hague, looks at the impact of these changes

Rainforest Coffee Products Pte Ltd (RCPPL), which was held to have infringed the RAINFOREST CAFÉ trade mark of Rainforest Café, Inc (RCI) under the repealed Trade Marks Act (Cap 332, 1992 edition) by the High Court last year, has failed in its appeal to the Court of Appeal (see the December 1999 issue of MIP under the same column for our report on the High Court decision).