What Managing IP has in store in 2016

Over the past few months, our researchers in London, New York and Hong Kong have been busy processing questionnaires and conducting interviews with IP practitioners in more than 80 countries. These will provide the basis for our IP Stars rankings and analysis, as well as our annual awards for the firms of the year.

The rankings will be published in stages, starting with the trade mark tables at the beginning of February, followed by the patent rankings in March and copyright in April.

The three IP Stars Handbooks (Trade Mark/Copyright, Patent and United States), including the commentaries written by our researchers for each jurisdiction, will be published between April and July.

And our awards ceremonies will be on March 10 (Global Awards, London) and March 17 (North America Awards, Washington DC).

2016 will be an important year for IP in the EU, and we are planning several special features. Regular readers will know that our extensive coverage on the UPC is available at managingip.com/UPC. As we come closer to the launch of the Unified Patent Court, and the first Unitary Patents to be granted, we will bring you all the latest news and analysis. And, in a special series of articles, we will ask leading practitioners in Europe to discuss how specific scenarios could be tackled in the UPC, based on the information available now. I’m confident these war games type articles will be both fascinating and useful for patent owners, and potential defendants, in Europe.

But we will not neglect other developments in Europe. In particular, in our next issue we will have a special feature on the EU trade mark reforms (which were published on December 23 and 24 and come into effect in stages starting from March). We will also be looking at proposals to reform copyright, trade secrets, industrial designs and geographical indications in the EU.

Away from Europe, our Americas editor Michael Loney will continue to focus on developments in the United States, including patent reform, litigation trends, the PTAB and copyright cases, as well as general developments in Canada and Latin America. But I will leave him to post more about that soon.

Other areas of the world we expect to be covering in depth this year include China (we have a supplement publishing in April), Turkey (a special focus in March), India, Japan and the Asean countries, and we will of course continue to monitor the ratification of the TPP in the participating 12 countries. IP in Africa will also get some overdue attention in 2016.

Innovation drives much IP law, and during 2016 we will be looking in detail at some innovative industries, including automotive technology, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cleantech (likely to come back into focus if the oil price stays low) and personalised medicine.

Inevitably, we will be concentrating on patent trends, but this year we also plan to look at some related areas that are important in particular industries or regions, including utility models and traditional knowledge as well as trade secrets.

We will do so by examining the big numbers on applications and litigation, but also through more interviews and profiles with relevant companies and organisations, including both multinationals and SMEs. Another topic we hope to devote some space to is the resolution of low-value or small claims cases, and how this is being dealt with around the world.

We have lots of events planned for 2016, details of which you can see on our events page and in our list of upcoming webinars. Our popular International Patent Forum will return to London on March 9 and 10, and we will hold two US Patent Forums in Silicon Valley (March 15) and Washington DC (March 17). Last year’s IP in Asia Forums in London and Paris will be repeated in June, and the Global IP & Innovation Summit will take place in Shanghai in September.

With the Women in IP Network going from strength to strength, and following the recent event in Palo Alto, we will hold the second International Women’s Leadership Forum in London on February 23, and another in New York on May 9.

And we are pleased to be taking the Luxury Brand & Retail Forum, which we held successfully in London last year, to New York on April 19. Also in New York will be our first PTAB Forum (May 12) and our first IP in Africa Forum (April); this comes as more attention is being paid to IP in Africa, and I note that INTA is also hosting an Africa-related event in September 2016.

To find out more about our plans, sign up for our free email newsletters or follow us on Twitter. And to read articles in full as soon as they are published, make sure you subscribe or – even better – set up corporate access for your company, department or organisation. Contact Daniel Bloomer to get our best rates and latest offers, or use the new live chat feature on the website.

Finally, if you have any suggestions for other topics we should be covering, or would like to contribute to Managing IP, please contact me.

Happy New Year to all our readers!