The North America, Latin America and Caribbean sections include all the firm rankings from the IP Survey, previously released in Managing IP magazine, as well as commentary on all the top-ranked firms.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa will be released on June 11 on the IP Handbook website, with Asia following on June 18.
All sections are can be accessed for free.
The research for the Handbook concluded earlier in the year, after six months of interviews, firm visits and analysis by researchers in Hong Kong, New York and London. Thousands of submissions were received and hundreds of lawyers and clients interviewed.
The analysis in each country includes recommendations of leading lawyers, firms’ stand-out transactions and cases and discussion of the leading trends in the past year. The introduction to the United States section, for example, includes debate among lawyers as to whether alternative billing arrangements are sustainable.
“Lawyers have two choices: They're going to respond appropriately and be flexible or they're going to start to lose clients,” commented one lawyer, while another said: "I see a lot of firms making promises they can't possibly keep in competitive bidding situations."
The Americas section alone includes 27 different tables: national and regional rankings in patents, trade marks and copyright, in both prosecution and contentious work. There are also separate rankings for ITC and life sciences work.
This level of detail sets the IP Handbook from any other directory. The Asia section, available on June 18, also includes regional rankings for different parts of China and for different cities in India.