The bagginess is to ensure the wearer avoids stiffness while bending down repeatedly during prayers. The pockets are for holding all the accessories Muslims have to take off while they worship. And the jeans have green seams - because green is the sacred color of Islam.

Al Quds representatives said a year of research and testing went into the product, with models being asked to try different versions of the jeans while they prayed.

Abdel Hamid Shaari, president of the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, said low-priced jeans specifically designed to keep Muslims comfortable could open up a big market in Islamic countries and countries with large Muslim populations.

"This could be a good idea, thinking of the comfort," said Shaari, who used to be a production manager for Italy's Carrera jeans.

"About 90 percent of Muslims, aside from a niche that wants Armani and other top designer-jeans, generally seek jeans that are both resistant and comfortable and not expensive," he said.

Shaari, who is originally from Libya, said Muslims in Tunisia and other North African countries generally wear established brands of jeans or imitations. He said "normal jeans indeed can be slightly stiff to pray and kneel in."

Al Quds - the Arabic name for Jerusalem - has produced an initial 9,500 pairs that it sold to the French retailer Carrefour SA. The retailer has sold an initial batch of about 50 pairs of jeans at a low promotional price of $22.53 in its centers in Italy, company officials said. Corradi said the regular price would be $30.44.

Officials at Carrefour and Al Quds said there was no way to know whether Muslims had bought the jeans.

Al Quds, based in Udine, hopes to make an impact first among Italy's 1.1 million Muslims. If successful, it will reach out to the estimated 18 million Muslims living in Europe.

The company's Web site advertises the jeans as "a new expression for an old tradition."

Corradi said officials from Carrefour had met with representatives from Al Quds and had "reacted with enthusiasm" to the new line. However, it was too soon to tell whether the French company would buy more.

"Let's say we're on the right path," Corradi said.

Carrefour said they did not intend to market the jeans exclusively to Muslims.

"We thought the (model) had an excellent quality-price ratio," said Sonia Augenti, a spokeswoman for Carrefour in Italy. "We target everyone. We do not have a political or religious connotation."

Corradi said the idea for the jeans first came to his friend Giorgio Lotta - a businessman who had never worked in fashion - about a year ago, when he spotted a picture in a newspaper of a sea of jeans-clad Muslims bent down in prayer.

Lotta, now president of Al Quds, studied the market for about a month and concluded there were no jeans designed to keep Muslims comfortable while they pray.

Corradi said the jeans are manufactured at a plant near Karachi, Pakistan that employs about 15,000 people.

"I wanted to respect (the fact) that if these are the first jeans for Islam, they should be built by Muslim hands," he said.

"The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy," said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers."

The National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament, passed the law on Tuesday, which French officials said is aimed at preventing any one company from building a grip on the digital online music retail market.

The new legislation would require that online music retailers provide the digital rights management software that protects copyright material to allow the conversion of music in one format to another.

But Apple said the law, which it opposes, would likely actually increase its sales of iPod music players. "iPod sales will likely increase as users freely upload their iPods with 'interoperable' music which cannot be adequately protected," Kerris said. "Free movies for iPods should not be far behind."

Technological advances raise new questions with each passing year. Should genes be patentable? What about life forms? The high-tech and pharmaceutical industries find themselves at odds on reform because patents affect their businesses so differently. The understaffed Patent and Trademark Office needs to draw the line between a real innovation and an obvious concept that should be freely available as a building block for future generations of creative thinkers.

Meanwhile, profiteers, including lawyers and hedge funds, have turned the very purpose of patent rights - to encourage people to invent and produce - on its head, using them to tax, blackmail and even shut down productive companies unless they pay high enough ransoms. These so-called patent trolls have emerged as the villains in this intellectual property debate.

The possibility of this sort of abuse is inherent in the concept of patents, which in this country allow no one to produce or sell a patented product for up to 20 years without a license from the patent holder. Our nation's founders considered intellectual property important enough to include in the Constitution, but did not establish the system for the sake of the inventor. It exists for the sake of society, or, as it says in the Constitution, "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts."

Now the pendulum has swung so far in the direction of the patent holder that many experts say we are not only restricting competition, but discouraging research and innovation as well. More patents are slipping through that are not new, like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or that should be obvious, like the migration of a simple business practice onto the Internet or a mobile device.

The problem lies not just with the short-staffed patent office, but also with the courts. The ease with which patent holders can get an injunction to shut down a thriving business means that many companies are quietly paying rather than fighting.

The recent threat that BlackBerry service might be shut down by an injunction caught everyone's attention. The patent office found that the three disputed patents should not have been granted in the case of the BlackBerry, a popular wireless communications device. Yet Research in Motion, the company that makes it, settled for a staggering $612.5 million to avoid an injunction.

The Supreme Court now appears ready to weigh in and - we hope - restore some sanity to the system. Yesterday the court heard arguments on whether the patent for a blood test for a vitamin deficiency was so broadly construed that it included a natural process of the human body and the idea of how to interpret it. Such a patent could prevent other inventors from developing new and better tests. The court will also hear arguments next week in a case attacking eBay, the global marketplace.

The court will not be able to solve the problem by itself, no matter how wise its ultimate rulings. The patent office, which handles three times as many applications as it did in 1985, has to be upgraded to meet the 21st century. There is legislation in the House to address that issue, and it needs to be taken up. By giving other people or companies the right to submit documentation before patents are granted and to challenge decisions, patents' quality could be improved and the courthouse avoided.

"It's very clear that we all have a right to life and health," Abel Mamani said. "The right to life and right to health without water is contradictory."

South America's poorest country, increasingly vocal on the world stage since the election of Evo Morales as president, is resisting other nations and international bodies at the World Water Forum being held in Mexico City.

A draft of the declaration calls water important to the poor and to people's health, but does not describe it as a human right.

Morales created a water ministry after taking power in January and appointed Mamani, an activist in recent years who was chasing foreign water companies, such as French utility Suez, out of Bolivia.

Survival necessity

Mamani said privatisation of water services in Bolivia led to soaring prices that left clean water out of the reach of the poorest people.

"You can't use a thing as important as water, which is synonymous with life, to make money," Mamani said.

"We're talking about something that unfortunately is necessary for survival."

The World Water Forum's ruling body is made up of members from governments, international organisations such as the World Bank, scientists and business people.

About 1.1 billion people, mostly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, lack easy access to safe drinking water.

Delegates at the meeting have said new ideas and investments are needed to meet a UN goal of halving the number of people without safe drinking water by 2015.

Mamani complained that the entry fee to the forum, at $120 a day, effectively excluded the poor from taking part.

India's edge, experts say, lies in the contrast between its large contingent of private, profitable firms that operate free of substantial government involvement, and the many listed Chinese companies over which Chinese authorities exert considerable control.

"When Chinese companies - which were previously state-owned - were listed on the stock market, the government believed it was best to retain majority control," says Peter Alexander, a former Wall Street banker who now runs the Shanghai-based financial consultancy Z-Ben Advisors. "So around two-thirds of a firm's shares were held back by the Chinese state and couldn't be traded. Theoretically, these shares could swamp the market one day and push prices down, which worried investors."

The large role played by the Chinese state in these firms also leads to concerns that they are run inefficiently and many are thought to be of poor quality, Mr. Alexander adds.

In contrast, several of India's privately run, stock market listed companies, though forced to battle bureaucracy and red tape, are viewed as well managed.

"The efficiency of Indian companies and the transparency of our stock market are much higher," says Bombay-based private investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who has turned $100 into an estimated fortune of $250 million by investing in Indian shares. "People like investing in our free and democratic country, where everything is open and known."

In Bombay, India's financial capital, concerns about the sustainability of the boom often play second fiddle to heady talk about India's economic potential. "I don't rule out a correction, but I rule out a reversal," says Mr. Jhunjhunwala.

Jhunjhunwala argues Chinese companies tend to be concerned with grabbing market share rather than making as much money as possible, whereas Indian firms are well regulated and focused on profits, which boosts their share prices.

Maya Bhandari, an economist at Lombard Street Research in London, contends India offers "a more solid economic foundation compared with China" and that the rise in India's stock market is justified.

"I think if you have a strong economy it's reflected in your equity market," Ms. Bhandari says. "We're forecasting a major slowdown in China from the middle of the year and India may gain from that."

Yet previous Indian market booms during the 1990s failed to last. One was notoriously scarred by scandal and corruption, leaving ordinary private investors out of pocket.

Most Indian private investors are still wary, fearful that unseen market manipulation will reveal the current stock market surge to be chimerical. They are skeptical that India's securities markets are free of corruption and fraud.

Analysts say the Indian government still plays a large role in many areas of the economy, leading to inefficiency. Some are now cautious about the Indian boom. "I wouldn't buy the Indian stock market today," says Marc Faber, an investment expert and the author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report. "It is not a bargain. If it goes too much higher, it could easily halve. Chinese shares, which were very expensive, are now more reasonable."

Mr. Faber points out that research shows "economic growth and stock market performance can diverge very significantly" over periods of a few years, meaning that a bet on India's stock market could lose money even if the economy performs well.

Nor has the Indian stock market boom created widely spread wealth, since it has "directly benefited a very narrow group of around 50 million people," according to Faber.

Meanwhile the Chinese government, which compared with India has attracted far more foreign investment directly into its economy if not into shares, has begun to loosen its grip on the stock market.

Analysts say the pressure on Chinese businesses to become more profitable is steadily rising, too. "The important thing about the Chinese stock market is not where it's been, but where it's going," says Alexander. "China's government wants Shanghai to usurp Hong Kong, the former British colony, as the country's primary stock market. The reforms will allow larger companies to float their shares in Shanghai."

So far, the stock market has been among the few business areas where India can boast a lead over China. Many experts continue to see good long term prospects. "But this year," says Faber, "I think China will beat India."