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Ralph Cunningham, Hong Kong

Anti-counterfeiting agencies have scored some major victories against copyright pirates in the UK. But enforcement remains an uphill struggle, as Ingrid Hering reports

Howard Coble is a congressman in the United States House of Representatives and has been chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property since 1994. He is a Republican and represents North Carolina. Blaine Merritt has been chief counsel of the subcommittee since February 2000.

Valery Medvedev of Gorodissky & Partners in Moscow explains that counterfeiting is a big problem in Russia, but that there are tools available to deal with it

A trade mark licensing programme should be a win-win situation. But, as Dickerson M Downing explains, licensors in the US need to be aware of the risk of products liability suits

The ECJ’s ruling in Philips v Remington has dealt a blow to trade mark owners hoping to register shape marks in Europe. Chris McLeod examines the decision

Michael Geist, law professor, University of Ottawa, and director of e-commerce law, Goodmans LLP, Toronto

In a row over the ownership of a programme format, Delhi High Court has granted protection to information revealed in a series of meetings about the programme idea. The decision is a triumph for the protection of confidential information, argues Binny Kalra

In German court decisions as well as in the German patent literature it has been a generally accepted position that product claims on the one hand and process claims on the other hand represent distinct claim categories; and that product patents (containing only product claims) and process patents (containing only process claims) are distinct patent categories. The applicant is free to choose the appropriate claim category or categories; a patent may contain product claims, process claims or both. However, after grant this choice is binding on the patentee, and a change of category from a product patent to a process patent (and vice versa) is considered to be inadmissible because it involves an extension of the protection conferred (Benkard, Patentgesetz – Gebrauchsmustergesetz, 9th Edition 1993, pages 141, 501, 686 and 710).

Australia: Almost 40% of Australian businesses are using pirated software, according to a Dimension Data Australia survey reported in The Australian newspaper, with IT managers blaming the problem on complex licensing programmes and a lack of internal monitoring. China: Sina.com, said to be China's leading internet content provider, has been ordered to pay Qian Kun, a writer, Rmb2,000 ($240) for publishing work Qian had done exclusively for Sohu.com, Sina's biggest rival, according to China Daily. Beijing No 1 Intermediate Court also ordered Sina.com to carry apologies to the writer on its sports channel for seven days. China: In what is thought to be an unprecedented move, authorities will allow US prosecutors to come to Beijing to question witnesses about the theft of Lucent Technologies software. The US lawyers are coming to the Chinese capital to interview staff from Datang Telecom Technology. In June 2001, three Chinese citizens, two of whom worked at Lucent's headquarters in New Jersey, were charged with stealing trade secrets from Lucent with the intent of using Datang to market a product based on the secrets. China: The Supreme People's Court has ruled that a trade mark owner can be prosecuted in a product liability action. The Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court asked the higher court to rule on the issue after it came up in a case concerning General Motors, the US car company, and two of its subsidiaries. The ruling came into force on July 28. Japan: The Office for Promotion of Justice System Reform is to study a proposal to exclude the public from court hearings on patents and other IP rights to prevent important business secrets from being revealed, according to Kyodo News Service. Japan: Sony has developed Open MG X, a new digital copyright management and distribution technology, which it says will stop the unauthorized copying of entertainment files, such as music and films, that are distributed over the internet and also enable content distributors to set hours and number of times for replaying such files. Thailand: The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has made its first raid in Thailand on a website it believes was selling pirated software, music, movies and pornography. The Economic Crime Investigations Division of the Thai Police carried out the raid on SmileThailand.com with the help of BSA investigators. The operator of the website was said to be selling CDs for Bt150 ($3.57).