Top 10 Intellectual Property Headlines from Europe In a much awaited decision, the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has considered a number of legal references from France with regard to the legality of Google's use of key words which are the same or similar to well known trade marks in its AdWords advertisement service. Various measures to toughen UK data protection enforcement have been in the pipeline for some time. Recent statements by the the Ministry of Justice indicate that certain of these could be brought into force as soon as next "red tape day", i.e. 6 April 2010. Over 50% of the 100 most popular web sites use a type of surreptitious cookie without their knowledge. The European Patent Office (EPO) are introducing further restrictions on the filing of voluntary amendments from 1st April 2010. The UK government has made a dramatic U-turn on proposed measures to tackle Internet pirates who illegally download films and music from the net. Swiss patent law has recently been subject to significant changes. On 1 July 2009, the principle of regional exhaustion for patent-protected products was introduced in relation to the member States of the European Economic Area. The claimants applied for and obtained a preliminary injunction relating to parallel imported goods, which was later discharged when the Court of Appeal decided that the goods did not infringe the claimants' trade marks and that no injunction was warranted. The High Court has found that the well known Mercedes-Benz three pointed star trade mark is not infringed by a similar three pointed star trade mark owned by Sany, a Chinese manufacturer of construction machinery. To sell a medicine in the European Union (EU), a marketing authorisation (MA) is required. Domain names are a vital business commodity and a valuable source of intellectual property. | 
