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There are grounds under the UK Trade Marks Act (1994, section 3(6)) for refusal or invalidity of registration where a trade mark is applied for in bad faith. The provision derives from the European Trade Marks Harmonization Directive (89/104) and has a counterpart in EU Trade Mark Regulation 40/94 (article 51(1)(b)). Bad faith is not defined and its scope has produced a divide between UK and EU case law over the need for subjective dishonesty on the part of the trade mark applicant (Trillium, First Cancellation Division of OHIM, C000053447/1, March 28 2000).

A company’s infrastructure is like a spider’s web in which information must be trapped and digested. This image conveys aptly one of the most challenging aspects of an IP manager’s job: capturing invention information, writes Janice Denoncourt

The Korean government has traditionally held the rights to inventions in national and public universities. But new technology transfer legislation will change that. Researchers will now have an incentive to commercialize their inventions, writes Man-Gi Paik

In an appeal from the US Patent and Trademark Office Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (Scott v Koyama, 61 USPQ 2d 1856 (Fed Cir Feb 27 2002)), an interference between a party (Koyama) that filed a patent application in Japan on March 13 1990 and a party (Scott) whose UK patent application was filed on March 29 1990, the Federal Circuit was faced with a situation in which neither party could rely on its actual reduction to practice of the invention. This was because the work was performed outside the US, and the applications were filed before January 1 1996. Had they been filed after that date, a statute (35 USC 104) permits the introduction of evidence concerning work performed anywhere in the world.

"A world patent is the eventual aim but this is difficult in the near future"

Stephen Whybrow, CMS Cameron McKenna, London

? China: An appeal court in Shanghai has banned seven former Unilever employees from appealing any further against a verdict finding them guilty of making fake shampoo worth Rmb1.27 million

Ingrid Hering, London

Michael Evans, London

Ralph Cunningham, Hong Kong