IAM 80 now published, featuring: standards in peril, the global IP market's movers and shakers, plus much more

Issue 80 of IAM has now been published and is available to subscribers online. Our cover story this time round is all about standards and the precarious state in which the piece’s author – Arvin Patel, chief IP officer of Technicolor – believes they find themselves. Standards are what makes the technology world go round. From smartphones to driverless cars, they get everywhere. And as new industries emerge around the Internet of Things and the Cloud that is not going to change. Or, to put it another way, it shouldn’t; the problem, though, is that it might. According to Patel, the entire standards system is in peril as an increasingly acrimonious confrontation between licensors and licensees risks running out of control. If both sides do not pull back, he argues, the consequences could be disastrous.

You’ll meet Patel again in our Market Makers of 2016 feature, where he is one of 40 men and women named in our annual ranking that identifies the biggest players in the global IP market. It takes a great deal of time and much argument – both among IAM’s reporting team and with external sources – to put the final list together and it is, of course, subjective; but, hopefully, readers will agree in broad terms with the individuals we have come up with.

Several figures from sovereign patent funds are featured in the Market Makers 2016 and in a detailed article we take a deep dive into the work that their firms are doing. It’s an interesting period for these entities, as they rethink and re-engineer for changing times.

With so much going on in the IP world right now, it’s no surprise that this is a very busy issue of IAM. We take an in-depth look at the various types of specialist IP court that are emerging in Europe and Asia, and we hone in the role the Roberts Supreme Court has played in reshaping the US patent landscape – the two article authors, one of which is former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel, pull no punches in arguing that in too many instances SCOTUS has not done a great job.

Elsewhere, we focus on how court decisions and new approaches to innovation are forcing companies to re-evaluate their entire approach to patenting, while we also have a compelling article on why a commitment to quality means Europe is producing high class patent assets, not just at the European Patent Office but at national agencies too. There is plenty more beside, including an overview of China’s patent boom and a look at technology transfer in Japan. And, as a special bonus, we feature an in-bound management report focusing on patent procurement and enforcement issues in four of Asia’s key jurisdictions: Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and China.