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Internet entrepreneurs beware. Registering a domain name does not give you an automatic right to the equivalent trade mark.

Due to a substantial general increase in IP activity - increasing numbers of national patent applications etc the need for skilled and well-educated personnel in this field has been continuously increasing particularly during the past few years. This goes for the Swedish Patent Office as well as for industry and private IP practitioners. In order to take care of innovations in industry, one of the best ways is to have in-house skilled IP experts who can promote and recognize internal inventive activity.

On May 4 1999, a new Act (14/1999) on Taxes and Public Prices for services provided by the Nuclear Security Council was adopted. This Act contains, among other things, the necessary provisions in order to adapt Spanish legislation to the Trade mark Rights Treaty and Regulation, which was ratified by Spain on March 17 1999.

When applicants appeal Korean Industrial Property Tribunal (KIPT) decisions on unpatentability matters to the Korean Patent Court (KPC), they are usually frustrated at the decisions made by the court. Considering that most of judges at the KPC have limited technical background, it is extremely difficult for an appellant to persuade judges to overturn a KIPT decision sustaining the examiner´ s rejection on a patent application by discussing complex technical principles and theories as to why such an invention should be patentable. In other words, judges at the KPC customarily defer the technical aspects of an invention, ie whether an invention is patentable, to the KIPT because the KIPT is comprised of technical experts whose decisions are usually supported with precise and accurate technical reasons.

Here are some of the highlights of amendments to the Patent Law currently being presented to the Diet: (1) Shortening of the time period for filing a request for examination (Sec 48ter(1)). The time period for filing a request for examination is to be revised to three years from the filing date instead of the seven years as provided for in Section 48ter(1). The proposed provision is to be applied to an application filed on or after October 1 2001. The seven year time limit though provided for in the current law is still to be applied to an application pending on the above effective date of October 1 2001.

Biotechnology

Authorities unveil new trade mark measures.

Increasingly, the decisions of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reflect the need for patent applicants, particularly non US-based applicants, to be assisted by a lawyer who is a skilled linguist. This is a natural outgrowth of the now-established principle that patent claim interpretation is a matter of law to be determined independently by the courts at each level of the litigation process (Cybor v FAS Technologies, 138 F 3d 1448 (Fed Cir 1998 en banc); Markman v Westview Instruments, 52 F 3d 967 (Fed Cir 1995 en banc); affirmed 517 US 370 (1996).

Amidst political turmoil sweeping across the country and stiff negotiations with the IMF the former Russian Government did not leave without attention attention to the problems of intellectual property. It was aware of the necessity to keep a more attentive eye on those issues. Several weeks ago it issued a Decree No 413. The Decree concerns copyright and neighbouring rights.

In Mexico when someone seeks protection for a title of a periodical publication, a Mexican intellectual property counsel should recommend obtaining copyright as well as trade mark protection as trade mark protection only will not suffice. The Mexican Copyright Law recognizes sui generis protection for titles of publications including magazines, heads of newspapers, newspapers, pamphlets, supplements and guides. The Law also recognizes other types of titles of publications, however for the purposes of this brief they need not be included.