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The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 28 about whether a Federal Circuit decision that allows patents with multiple reasonable interpretations dilutes the statutory requirement for particular and distinct claims, with some observers predicting the Court will ask the Federal Circuit to come up with a new rule

Victoria Espinel, president and CEO of the BSA and former US IP Czar (below, left), will open Managing IP’s 2014 International Women’s Leadership Forum in June

New gTLDs are a reality: the names of leading brands can be bought on new domains now for as little as $15. So how should brand owners protect themselves, while keeping costs down? James Nurton provides a step-by-step survival guide

President, global domains division, Icann

In Europe and the US, numerous decisions regarding FRAND terms and the enforceability of standard essential patent (SEP) have been issued. In Japan, on February 28 2013, the Tokyo District Court made the first decision on whether the enforcement of SEP with the patentee's FRAND declaration would be limited.

The odds can be increased for defendants seeking to stay patent litigation in favour of patent office validity review. Jeffrey Totten and Eric Jeschke identify four ways to do this

Global Awards 2014

An inventor (the plaintiff) has concluded a contract with a firm (the defendant) to market together his invented product under his trade mark. The contract was concluded for an unlimited period without clauses for termination. The firm made substantial investment in tests and development of prototypes to make the product fit for the market. But after some time the inventor sent a termination letter and finally sued the firm for trade mark infringement as the firm continued using the trade mark for marketing that product. The question was whether such termination withdrawing the consent to trade mark use is possible and is valid or – as the firm stated – is disproportional and a misuse of law in view of the high investment not yet regained.

The Indonesian government through the Indonesian Patent Office is sending letters to at least 7,600 Indonesian patent owners in order to claim unpaid annual fees along with additional interest as soon as possible. More than half of the said unpaid patents are owned by foreign entities.

Every once in a while the question whether there is copyright on patent documents surfaces. For the Netherlands this question has now been answered. In a monograph, published at the request of the Dutch Association of Patent Attorneys, Professor Quaedvlieg (University of Nijmegen) has delved extensively into this subject.