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Judge Chen Jinchuan It's hard to deny the influence of social media and campaigners harnessing the web to bring new voices to the debate. At the same time, this past year has seen considerable activity in the IP offices, legislatures and courts. Even at a time where the law is often derided for not moving quickly enough to keep up with developments in business and technology, the influence of those working in the traditional halls of power for intellectual property is hard to overstate. There has been a considerable amount of legislative change in the past year. Lord Younger, UK IP Minister, has had a number of notable achievements under his belt, such as the passage of the UK IP Act 2014. The new law, which received Royal Assent in May, makes a number of minor changes to streamline processes, but also notably introduces criminal sanctions for design patent infringement. Furthermore, the IP Act takes a number of steps towards preparing the UK for the Unitary Patent.

Contents Meet IP’s most influential people

Debate around intellectual property's role in society is as old as society itself. Here, Managing IP identifies influential business and entertainment figures that are shaping the current arguments, and changing the business model for monetising IP. Some are IP practitioners at businesses who go beyond their day job to influence the debate; some are disrupters forcing a change in how patents are monetised and enforced; while others are complete outsiders who find themselves embroiled in disputes that shape IP law.

IPO Director of Innovation & Strategic Comms with background in private sector and Whitehall roles.

Policy makers around the world are tackling some big IP-related issues. These include the relationship between IP laws and economic growth; ways of responding to counterfeiting and piracy; and the correct balance between ensuring access to innovation and incentivising the production of more of it.

In a recent interview with Managing IP, former SIPO commissioner Tian Lipu said that IP disputes should be treated as a matter between private parties rather than a political argument. But is this even possible?

In a recent judgment, the multi-bench Court of First Instance in Athens (specialised section in IP matters) clarified that certain defences that may be raised by defendants in trade mark infringement cases are impermissible.

While patent practitioners all over Europe anxiously follow the establishment of the UPC, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO has rendered a decision (interim decision in case R 19/12 of April 25 2014), which highlights a constitutional hitch relating to the independence of the Boards of Appeal from other organisational bodies within the EPO.

Nike International filed an appeal against the refusal of the Patent Office to register its mark (application number 2011725665) for class 25. According to the documents on file the claimed designation is figurative and represents a stylised head of a bull.

On May 29 2014, the DNS.PT Association, which is responsible for the management, registration and maintenance of domains under the top-level domain (TLD) .pt, published changes to the rules for the registration of domain names in the .pt domain. The changes came into force on June 16 2014.