You can't use that name here, Bud!

Beechwood-aged or not, an EU court decided today that Budweiser-brewer Anheuser-Busch should not have rights to the "Bud" brand throughout the 27 nation bloc. It is a victory for the Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar, which said it had registered the name in France, Austria and former Czechoslovakia in 1958. Anheuser will now have to rely on registering its trademark in each individual member state. It said it already had trademark protection in 23 of the EU states. Losing the right to a community-wide trademark can be a major blow for a firm, as gaining European Union-wide rights avoids the lengthy and costly process of going through the systems in individual countries and gaining separate trademarks in each of these.

It is the latest stage of a long-running trademark dispute between the two brewers. Budejovicky Budvar was founded in 1895 in Ceske Budejovice, which was known as Budweis by its German-speaking inhabitants. Beer had been brewed there since 1265. Budweiser was first produced in St Louis in 1852 and was America's first national beer brand. The name was taken because it was familiar to the German founders of the company.

With a consumer spending slowdown across the United States and Europe, it is not yet clear whether Anheuser-Busch will appeal today's ruling.

Barbie beats Bratz

Bratz dolls are facing removal from all shops after a US federal court banned parent company MGA Entertainment from making the Barbie rival. The court issued the order after Barbie-maker Mattel won a landmark copyright-infringement case against MGA in August. Bratz designer Carter Bryant has been found guilty of developing the Bratz brand while still working for Mattel. MGA has challenged the ruling, which severely undermines its business model. A federal judge in California banned MGA from selling and making all 40 multi-ethnic dolls in the Bratz line. But it allowed the company to wait until after Christmas to begin removing dolls from the shelves.

Mattel, the world's biggest toymaker, won the case after claiming that Mr Bryant had designed the Bratz dolls while he was still in the employment of Mattel. The toymaker claimed that under the terms of his contract it had ownership of his designs. Mr Bryant worked for Mattel between 1995 and April 1998 and then again from January 1999 to September 2000, and MGA argued that it was between these time frames that Mr Bryant had come up with the designs.

Once the most famous doll, Barbie has ceded ever more popularity to her rival upstarts. Bratz tapped into the lucrative "tween" market - not quite little girl, not yet teen. The dolls' looks were crucial, often coming with lots of makeover accessories. Barbie's worldwide gross sales fell 6% between April and June 2008 as the company's net profit fell 48% to $11.8m. Barbie sales in the US were down 21%.

The Barbie/Bratz showdown isn't just a battle of the dolls - it should act as a strong warning to businesses to develop better systems to manage intellectual property, particularly in the current economic downturn where we are seeing escalating job losses and redundancies.

Batman to sue the Dark Knight

The mayor of a city in Turkey called Batman, is suing The Dark Knight director, Christopher Nolan for copyright infringement. Huseyin Kalkan, wants compensation from Nolan and the producers of the film for using his city's name without permission. Even if the case never goes to trial, the free publicity could win Batman a tourism windfall.

Mayor Huseyin has apparently tried this before; he first gained international notoriety after it was revealed that he had filed a lawsuit against DC Comics for using his city's name in their Batman Comic book franchise. In 2007, DC Comics confirmed that they had settled with the city for an undisclosed amount. In February, 2008, the mayor was sentenced to 10 months in jail for promoting terrorism. Prosecutors speculated that Kalkan may have used money from his settlement with DC Comics to fund terrorism.