Supreme Court Rulings and patent reform are making it harder to defend patents in the US – and biotechs are falling back on trade secrets to protect their IP.
Brussels is abuzz with speculation that Europe’s fragmented, costly and complex patent regime is about to reform – aided by advances in machine translation. But support is not unanimous.
On current growth rates China will overtake the US to become the world’s largest patent filing jurisdiction by 2012, according to market analysts Evalueserve.
The UK has launched a new free searchable database for published patents data, allowing users to search and download published patent information, on-line, free of charge.