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Telecoms and electronics giants can throw their weight around in negotiations over patent cross-licences. And it is right that they should extract significant licence fees in respect of their relevant and valuable intellectual property. But, asks William Cook, is it credible to claim to have hundreds of patents that are "essential" to industry standards?

In its ruling in eBay v MercExchange, the US Supreme Court seems to have found a comfortable middle ground that keeps everyone happy. But, as James Nurton reports, some fear it will lead to inconsistency in the courts

Many high-tech companies are increasingly being hit by challenges from patent licensing companies - or patent trolls - that threaten to ruin their business. Bob Cote and Rodger Sadler provide six strategies to defend yourself

The town of Barcelona has won its challenge to the registration of Barcelona.eu as a domain name.

Internet: The latest top-level domain name, .mobi, launched on May 22 with a sunrise period for rights owners in the mobile telecoms industry. This will be followed by a sunrise period for IP rights owners, starting on June 12 and lasting until August 21. The .mobi registry is Mobile Top Level Domain Ltd in Dublin, Ireland, which was set up by companies including Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung and Vodafone. Dot-mobi is the first TLD that will be tailored to mobile devices: owners of .mobi domain names have to comply with rules that make their content easily accessible on phones, personal digital assistants and other gadgets.

A monthly column devoted to IP curiosities and controversies, named in honour of John of Utynam - who received the world's first recorded patent in 1449

The Enlarged Board of Appeal has laid down the criteria that allow a practitioner to assess whether a diagnostic method is excluded from patentability under Article 52(4) EPC. In Opinion G1/04 of December 16 2005, the Board sets a liberal standard for the patentability of diagnostic methods.

On April 7 2006, Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code were cleared of infringing copyright in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (HBHG). The case was brought by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of HBHG, against Random House (the publisher of both books).

The legal provisions regarding actions to cancel a trade mark are contained in Article 48 of Law 84/1998 concerning trade marks and geographical indications, specifying that "any interested person" can request a trade mark cancellation if:

On April 18 2006 the Beijing People's High Court upheld the decision of the lower Court in holding the owner of the Silk Road Market in Beijing to be infringing the trade marks of LV, Chanel, Prada, Gucci and Burberry by providing conveniences to the stores operating there and selling counterfeit goods involving these brands.