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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.

Companies losing millions of dollars to makers of fakes want consumers to understand that counterfeiting harms legitimate businesses, exploits workers and is often run by criminal gangs with murky links to terrorism. So why do people still buy knock-offs? Peter Ollier took the short journey from Hong Kong to Shenzhen to see how the counterfeit buyers justify their purchases

Two Japanese inventors have recently become millionaires after being awarded compensation for their revolutionary patents. The cases have led to concern among Japanese businesses, and proposals for changes to the patent law. Emma Barraclough investigates

David Haigh, Chief executive, Brand Finance plc

WTO membership has required China to reform its IP laws. Many of the new provisions are welcome. But, as ever, they will be judged on the strength of their enforcement, write Yvonne Chua and Howard Tsang

Recent law reforms render Denmark an attractive place to litigate patents, with specialist judges and faster processes. Ulla Klinge and Jakob Pade Frederiksen of Inspicos report

There is concern that academic exemptions from patenting laws may hinder the development of lucrative products. Edward Farrington and Richard Wolff of Valea explore the Swedish situation

India's IP landscape is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Dev Robinson and Ranjan Negi of Amarchand Mangaldas, New Delhi, discuss the emerging trends and the dynamic environment

China's State Intellectual Property Office has denied rumours that it started an investigation into Microsoft for anti-monopoly activities

The high speed of IT developments has made it hard for the government to legislate for the internet. But Dipak Rao and Ravi Singhania of Singhania & Partners argue that it is catching up