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The EPO says it received 232,000 applications in 2010, a 10% increase on the previous year. The figure includes Euro-PCT applications.

The Court of Appeal in London has upheld a decision that two European patents asserted by IPCom are invalid.

The Federal Circuit overturned a patent invalidity finding, citing the Bilksi judgment, in a case between Research Corporation Technologies and Microsoft concerning process patents. In the opinion, Rader said that the Supreme Court in Bilski said the Section 101 patent-eligibility inquiry "is only a threshold test". Noting that the Court had rejected the Federal Circuit's machine-or-transformation test, he said: "[S]ection 101 does not permit a court to reject subject matter categorically because it finds that a claim is not worthy of a patent." For processes, said Rader, the Supreme Court "refocused" the inquiry on the question of whether the subject matter is abstract - but did not provide a rigid formula or definition for abstractness. He went on to conclude that because the inventions in the patents are directed to patent-eligible subject matter, "the process claims at issue, which claim aspects and applications of the same subject matter, are also patent-eligible".

The UK's latest IP review will focus on how IP rights can help "drive economic growth", according to the man tasked with leading it.

At the Global Forum on IP in Singapore last month, Starbucks explained how to cut costs, judges proclaimed that only they could keep the law up to speed with technology, and we heard the curious tale of offshoring IP to a bank manager in Curaçao. Which worked fine until his secretary took over.

The introduction of statements indicating that protection has been granted through the Madrid System marks a victory for trade mark owners. The change was agreed in September 2008, and became mandatory on January 1 2011. But it had been raised by brand owners' representatives as far back as 2005.

Partly because of pressure from governments on IP protections, the Icann Board did not as originally expected give final approval to the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) programme but any joy for brand owners might be short lived.

eBay is not generally liable for trade mark infringements committed by its users, but can be held liable where there are persistent infringers. This was the conclusion of Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen in a detailed opinion published in December, which addressed 10 questions from the High Court in London in a dispute between eBay and L'Oréal.

In a “remarkable decision”, the US Federal Circuit has ruled out the practice of awarding patent holders 25% of potential profits. Eileen McDermott reports

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton has opened an office in Taipei after hiring a team of lawyers from Howrey