BlackBerry tops and tails the IAM blog's top 20 most-read stories of 2016

It’s that time of year when an IAM editor’s thoughts turn to happy families, log fires, a nice bottle of Macallan and a cigar or two. Thus, ever-so-reluctantly (!), this blog will now be taking its annual Christmas and New Year break. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s been one hell of a 12 months; in the UK, in Europe more widely, in North America and Asia. So much has happened and a few days to think about it all and to put it into some kind of context will be very welcome.

Before we go, though, a big thank-you to each and every one of this blog’s loyal readers. Our Google analytics stats tell me that in 2016 we have had 114,649 unique users who between them have visited us 226,574 times for an average period of one minute 47 seconds. The top 10 countries from which our readers are drawn are: (1) the US; (2) the UK; (3) Germany; (4) Canada; (5) India; (6) Japan; (7) the Netherlands; (8) South Korea; (9) China; and (10) France. The top 10 cities are: (1) New York; (2) London; (3) Munich; (4) San Francisco; (5) Washington DC; (6) Chicago; (7) Alexandria; (8) Seoul; (9) Los Angeles; and (10) the Hague.

Drilling a bit deeper, I can see that, overall, the US is by far our single biggest source of readers (over 45%) and that within the US, California is our number one state. There, the top 10 cities for IAM blog readers are: San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Palo Alto, Redwood City, Irvine and Mountain View. Adding all the Silicon Valley cities together would give us our single biggest source of readers in the US outside of New York. If you throw in San Francisco it would be by far the biggest globally.

Despite globalisation and the prevailing anti-patent leanings of American courts and legislators, then, it is clear that even if the world IP market is not just the US anymore, US entities remain at the heart of it. That said, what they want to know about is clearly globalising – as a look at our top 20 most-read stories of the year shows:  

1. Blackberry enters second phase of its patent monetisation push with Texas suit against Avaya

2. NPE assertion comes to China as WiLAN subsidiary files SEP suit against Sony in Nanjing - UPDATED

3. Volvo's IP revolution and an inside look at the growing European patent market lead the way in IAM 79

4. Spectacular Technicolor licensing performance shows that the monetisation market is far from dead

5. Europe's potential to sit at the heart of the global patent market may have to be reconsidered

6. Harvard lawsuits could be a taste of things to come say tech transfer experts

7. Brexit leads the way in the IAM blog reads rankings for the first seven months of the year

8. Start-ups that file for patents are 35 times more likely to be successful than those which don’t, new research reveals

9. EPO users and staff need the Administrative Council to get a grip on current events

10. After $4.8 billion core business sale to Verizon, Yahoo! CEO seeks to flush out patent buyers

11. EPO President Benoît Battistelli responds to IAM criticisms of recent union official dismissal

12. A closer look at the busiest month of patent litigation on record

13. Market conditions may force changes, but we’re ready for China opportunities, says Transpacific CEO

14. Visa leads the way in US mobile payments patents, but application numbers are down post-Alice

15. Battistelli under pressure like never before as over half of EPO staff vote for strike action

16. Sacked EPO staff union official responds to Battistelli's IAM letter

17. First half US patent litigation down dramatically with new suits falling by almost 1,000

18. As Korean, French and Japanese sovereign patent funds gain traction, other countries warm towards the model

19. The Beijing IP court gave foreign IP plaintiffs a perfect 65-0 win rate in 2015, reports one of its judges

20. Multi-million dollar Blackberry transaction set to put former Alcatel-Lucent IP leaders back in the game

Unless something absolutely earth-shattering happens, we’ll back on 2^nd January with the first part of our IP personalities of 2016.

Here’s wishing all those who celebrate it, in whatever way they do, a very Merry Christmas; and all of you a happy, peaceful and successful 2017.