Cover Story

• How brand licensing in China is changing

  

  Increasing competition, new structures and evolving legislation mean western brand owners licensing in China for the first time need to be very selective with their strategy. Simon Crompton presents the options

• Interview: Hello Kitty

  

  Roberto Lanzi, head of licensing at Sanrio – which owns the Hello Kitty brand – tells Simon Crompton how it combines a variety of licensing models with its own production

• Case studies and examples

  The 10 biggest mistakes made by brands licensing to emerging markets, by Ben Goodger

Features

• Be prepared for copyright termination

  

  Edward Weiman, Andrew DeFrancis and Kenneth Kronstadt explain why the right of copyright termination exists, and how to cope with the imminent onslaught of termination notices

• Does EU Customs need greater powers?

  

  Following the Nokia and Philips judgments last year, and recent suggested amendments to the Customs Regulation, Managing IP asks whether EU law should be amended to give Customs greater powers to seize IP-infringing goods. Two lawyers give two different views

• IP problems don’t just need IP solutions

  Business relationships, contract management and political connections are all good ways to protect your IP in China, argue Brendan Murphy, Andy Sun, Philip Warden, Ana Damonte and Raj Davé

• How to deal with parasites

  A study has shown the extent to which approaches to lookalike goods – or parasitic copying – vary around Europe. Sahira Khwaja explains the results and provides advice for brand owners

• Strategies for dealing with the non-joinder provision

  Marla Butler explores the likely impact of and possible strategies for navigating the non-joinder provision mandated by the America Invents Act

• Trade mark survey 2012

  

  In the second part of its annual survey of IP firms, Managing IP lists the leading firms for trade mark prosecution and contentious work. The rankings are the result of five months’ work by researchers based in London, Hong Kong and New York

• Trade mark survey: Africa and Middle East

• Trade mark survey: Americas

• Trade mark survey: Asia

• Trade mark survey: Europe

News Analysis

• How US contested cases will now work

  Eileen McDermott explains the impact of the new USPTO rules for post-grant review, inter partes review and other proceedings under the America Invents Act

• The road to the rules, with Janet Gongola

  USPTO Patent Reform Coordinator Janet Gongola gave Eileen McDermott a sneak peek into the work leading up to the release of the rules package implementing the contested cases provisions of the America Invents Act

• Shock around Europe as ACTA falls apart

• Smartphone war turns against Apple

IP Clinic

• Do we need a CIPO?

  

  How does a chief intellectual property officer work and which businesses benefit from one?

News in Brief

• Patents: EU-India negotiations prompt patent protests

• Trade marks: Why “bad things” are affecting trade mark functionality

• Copyright: Mobile TV rights put in doubt

• Internet IP: Icann may increase trade mark protection in gTLDs

• Moves: CIPA gets new chief executive

Diary

• Letter from the editor

• Utynam's Heirs

Country Updates

• South Africa - Will South Sudan get its IP right?

• Argentina - Acquiring ownership of a trade name or designation

• Australia - Unrestrained video recording allowed on the web

• Austria - Avoid bifurcation pitfalls

• Belgium - Boost for colour marks

• European Patent Office - EU patent court on hold

• France - Limitation request refused

• Germany - Court rules on SPCs with negative duration

• Greece - ACTA provokes protests

• India - IPAB rules on business methods

• Malaysia - Court of Appeal addresses passing off

• Mexico - Federal Law for Consumer Protection amended

• New Zealand - My trade marks not registrable

• Norway - Consider an administrative review of a patent

• The Philippines - Mobile phone transaction patent not new

• Poland - Forest Fresh similar to Wunderbaum

• Russia - Hispania more recognisable than Vienna?

• Switzerland - Assignment claims for Go Fast reach full stop

• Taiwan - The patent-utility model dilemma

• Thailand - Can you register a functional design?

• US: Trade marks - Louboutin claims colour exclusivity