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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.

United States district courts have reached different conclusions as to the effect of foreign patent proceedings on US patent litigation.

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.

After more than eight years of fruitful activity, Mr Ladislav Jakl, president of the Czech Industrial Property Office, decided to resign from his duties and leave the Office on December 31 1998.

Car maker Porsche has taken action against no less than 130 Internet domain names using its trade marks in an in rem suit.

Following its judgment in the Hermes case, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is again being requested to pass judgment on the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In the Hermes case (case C-63/96), the ECJ had to judge whether the term provisional measures, as used in Article 50, Paragraph 6 of the TRIPS Agreement, also applies to Dutch interim injunction proceedings. Article 50, Paragraph 6 stipulates that a provisional measure must be followed by proceedings leading to a decision on the merits of the case, and the Dutch court had asked the European Court for a ruling as to whether Dutch interim injunction proceedings (kort geding) could be regarded as a provisional measure. The European Court affirmed that such was the case.

There are signs that Virginia’s eastern district, known since 1990 as the rocket docket, has taken on more than it can chew.

Joel Smith, Andrea Montanari and Simona Cazzaniga provide an update on the complex Italian regime for protecting industrial designs, in the light of new legislation

On January 28 1999, the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Act 1998 became law in Australia, introducing provisions for the extension of the term of patents relating to pharmaceutical substances.

Vietnam’s days as a piracy blackspot could be numbered following the introduction of an agreement with the US on December 24 1998.