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The judgment in 2007 of the Court of First Instance in Microsoft Corporation v European Commission was the culmination of one of the biggest anti-trust battles ever to have taken place in the European Union. Although most aspects of the European Commission's original decision of 2004 were upheld, the Microsoft case remains interesting at several levels. The judgment deals with the question of when it is permissible, in the public interest, to encroach upon the exclusivity of intellectual property rights-holders, by requiring the grant of licences to third parties seeking to enter or remain on the market. The case provides an illustration of Community policy objectives being implemented through the medium of the competition rules, namely the opening up of the software industry to more competition and the encouragement of innovation in information technology. It also provides an illustration of differing attitudes to the anti-trust regulation of unilateral conduct by companies with a dominant market position in Europe and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patents may be refused in Europe on ethical grounds. Whereas in the past this issue has arisen only infrequently, recent developments in human embryonic stem cell research have given rise to conflicting opinions in Europe as to the approach that should be adopted in relation to patents. The United Kingdom Patent Office has adopted a positive policy towards inventions involving human embryonic stem cells, but the European Patent Office has to date refused to grant patent applications involving similar subject-matter. A series of legal questions on the role of ethics in granting European patents is now to be considered for clarification by the European Patent Office. The answers to these questions should eventually resolve the debate on the patenting of human embryonic stem cells throughout Europe.

Having first been proposed over a decade ago to harmonize European patent law for the benefit of Europe's fledgling biotechnology industry, the Biotechnology Patent Directive underwent a somewhat tortured introduction to adolescence when its adoption was challenged by a legal annulment action from the Governments of the Netherlands, Italy and Norway. This article explores the nature of the legal challenge to the Directive, which to an extent typify European concerns about biotechnological inventions, particularly the "patenting of life."