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Hogan Lovells has increased its IP presence in Silicon Valley and San Francisco with five lateral hires. Jennifer Lantz, Steve Levitan, Clark Stone (left to right) and Edward Kwok join from Haynes and Boone and will be based in Hogan Lovells' Silicon Valley office.

A Beijing court has awarded seven Chinese authors, including popular blogger Han Han, damages against search engine Baidu for copyright infringement. The court held that Baidu's Wenku literature searching service illegally published copies of the plaintiffs' works. The seven authors received damages totalling Rmb145,000 ($22,937) from Haidian District People's Court, which was far lower than the amount they requested. The court also denied their requests that the service be shut down and for a public apology. Han, who sued after three of his books appeared on Wenku, had asked for Rmb760,000 and closure of the online library. He was awarded just over Rmb80,000, with the court saying that the evidence of the severity of infringement was insufficient.

OHIM is on the search for a new president of its Boards of Appeal after revealing that Paul Maier is to leave the post to oversee the Office's new IP Observatory. Three years ago the European Commission set up a European Observatory on Counterfeiting and Piracy as a platform for coordinating actions to protect IP rights throughout the EU. In March EU member states agreed to rename it the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights and hand its management to OHIM, the Alicante-based office that grants Community trade marks and designs.

The USPTO's Patent Review Processing System went live on September 16, and within 24 hours 13 petitions for post-issuance proceedings had been filed under the America Invents Act. The petitions included 10 inter partes review (IPR) petitions and three requests for review of patents under the covered business methods programme (CBM). Intellectual Ventures filed four of the IPR petitions. All of them relate to patents owned by Silicon Valley company Xilinix, which supplies programmable logic devices used to build digital circuits.

Influential academic is afraid of power going to local agencies Describes upbringing in ancient agricultural society I am professor of law at Renmin University of China [the People's University], and dean of the Intellectual Property Academy there. I am also director of the Intellectual Property Teaching and Research Center at the university.

Provide as much information to Customs as possible Posting a general bond avoids repeated filings Trade mark renewal can leave gaps in protection Last month's seizure of $18 million of Chinese-sourced counterfeit Christian Louboutin shoes highlights the importance of Customs in the fight against IP infringement. Following the seizure, in-house counsel on the Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC) gave their recommendations on making the most of Chinese Customs procedures.

YSL did not infringe red sole trade mark Trade mark is valid, to relief of industry Court fails to rule on functionality Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Louboutin both claimed victory in September after a judge reinstated Louboutin's red sole trade mark but said that YSL did not infringe it with a monochromatic red shoe. But who has gained most from the decision, and what can brand owners learn from it?

Competitors will emphasise designs and their protection Jury strategies will become more important Litigants realise importance of a positive "story" At the end of August a US jury ruled in favour of Apple against Samsung, in one of the most important legs in their long-running smartphone litigation. Apple was awarded over $1 billion in damages, drawing attention in particular to design patents in the US, which differ from utility patents in that damages for total profits resulting from the infringement can be awarded.

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Managing IP lists the IP-related rulings, conferences and events taking place this week