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After five months of research, MIP can now unveil the IP survey 2005, listing the leading firms in 57 jurisdictions. The first part, published here, provides a guide to the leading patent firms worldwide. James Nurton explains the new methodology and introduces the results

Patent leader IBM has said that it will provide open access to 500 of its patents to anyone working in the field of open source software.

Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

Stéphanie Bodoni, London

Stéphanie Bodoni, London

Emma Barraclough, Hong Kong

US: For the 12th consecutive year, IBM was granted more US patents than any other company in 2004. The company received 3,248 patents. Second-placed Matsushita received 1,934 patents (see chart). US: ICANN has received five applications to run the .net top-level domain, which is due to be transferred later this year. Afilias, CORE++ Asociación, DENIC, Sentan and VeriSign all submitted their applications by the January 18 deadline. US: The USPTO granted 187,170 patents, including 169,296 utility, 16,533 design and 998 plant patents, in 2004. The Office also registered 155,991 trade marks and renewed 34,735 marks. US: In a joint court briefing filed with the Supreme Court in the Grokster case, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America called on the Court to overturn a lower court's ruling that peer-to-peer file-sharing networks are not guilty of contributory liability. The associations argued that the networks are guilty of "encouraging and assisting the massive illegal downloading and uploading by the users of their services" of copyrighted content. US: The selling of protected keywords by internet search engines does not infringe trade mark owners' rights, according to a ruling in the case of Google v Geico. The decision by a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia means that Google can continue to sell trade marked words to its sponsors, whose advertisements appear whenever the mark is entered as a search query. US: A licensing deal between EMI Music Publishing, the world's largest music publisher, and record company Sony BMG Music Entertainment will see the companies' songs made available for mobile products, such as telephone ring tones, and will also cover the display of music videos on video-on-demand and similar services. The agreement also provides for a new product called DualDisc, a CD player on one side and a DVD player on the other.

Singapore is due to accede to the Geneva Act (1999) of the Hague Agreement during the first half of 2005, in line with the Registered Designs (Amendment) Act 2004 which came into force on January 1 2005. This will allow Singapore to meet its obligations under the European Free Trade Association-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (ESFTA).

The US Supreme Court’s recent trade mark ruling has broadened the scope of fair use defences that can be used by alleged infringers. But, says Jonathan Moskin, the ruling’s cautious logic also raises questions for trade mark owners to consider

India introduced a product patent regime to meet its TRIPs deadline by promulgating the Patents Ordinance 2004 on December 26. The Ordinance came into force on January 1. This measure, albeit temporary, reflects the government's resolve to meet its WTO obligations. The Indian constitution provides that an Ordinance expires six weeks after Parliament reconvenes, giving it an effective life span of six months. The government now has the unenviable task of facing opposition parties in its efforts to substitute the Ordinance with an Act.