IAM blog highlights from the last week

There is nothing unusual about company boards getting involved in disputes with shareholders over aspects of corporate strategy; but until recently, IP has not been a subject of disagreement. Now that is beginning to change. On the IAM blog this week, we looked at a major bust-up between the directors of France’s Technicolor and its biggest investor over its patent monetisation strategy. As IP awareness increases among shareholders, we can expect to see more of this in the future, we said. With congressional moves to kickstart patent reform expected imminently, we focused on a new ‘anti-troll’ coalition whose deep pockets will ensure that its views get a good hearing and may have a significant influence on how things unfold in Washington DC. We also highlighted the latest developments in a family-run firm’s patent assertion campaign backed by finance from Fortress; it shows, we stated, that US litigation is – more than ever – a big boys’ game. Elsewhere, we explained why China’s inventor deficit threatens its innovation leadership ambitions and reported on Korea’s plans to lighten the load of its overworked patent examiner corps.