South Africa's Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) became the first Patent Office in the world to award a patent that names an artificial intelligence (AI) system as an inventor. The South African patent was based on a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application. Similarly, a judge of the Federal Court of Australia has found that AI can be an “inventor”. Justice Beach found that there was “no specific provision that expressly refutes the proposition”. In contrast, the position in other patent offices such as the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), the European Patent Office (EPO) and the USPTO, is that an inventor must be a natural person.
1 In the Courts: Australian Court finds AI systems can be “inventors”, Currey, R & Owen, J, WIPO Magazine, Sep 2021
2 Artificial Intelligence system as inventor in South African patent application: The case of DABUS, Okorie, C, IPKat, Aug 2021

The production of vaccines is more complex than small molecule drugs. Several obstacles need to be overcome to make vaccines: as well as intellectual property, there is other data such as trade secrets and know-how, production needs expertise at all stages, manufacturing capacity, availability of raw materials and cell lines. Organisations and companies have worked together to create COVID19 vaccines.
The COVID-19 Vaccine Patent Waiver: The Wrong Tool for the Right Goal, Rutschman, AS and Barnes-Weise, J, Harvard Law Petrie-Flom Center, Bill of Health, May 2021

Productivity, a key driver of economic growth in countries, was demonstrated to be linked to innovation. The authors also found that an increase in one standard deviation in patenting activity increases income per capita by 0.28 standard deviation. The total factor productivity (TFP) measures came from the World Input Output Database.
Global Innovation Spillovers and Productivity: Evidence from 100 years of World Patent Data, Berkes, E, Manysheva, K and Mestieri, M, The Research Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), 5 Apr 2021

Caltech wins a $1.1-billion patent verdict against Apple and Broadcom
This is the sixth-largest patent verdict of all time, according to Bloomberg. Apple are likely to offer an aggressive defence in this dispute over microchips.
Decker A, Lopez I & Bultman M, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, 30 Jan 2020

$2.54 billion Damages in Idenix Sets New Record
In 2016, a jury in the awarded Idenix Pharmaceuticals LLC a record-setting $2.54 billion in damages against Gilead Sciences, Inc.. [Award overturned in 2018.]
$1.725 billion in Boston Scientific v. Cordis, awarded in 2010.
$1.456 billion in Marvell Semiconductor v. Carnegie Mellon University, awarded in late 2012. [Figure reduced on appeal.]
$1.67 billion in Abbott Labs v. Centocor and New York University, awarded in 2009, [subsequently overturned in 2011].
$1 billion in El Dupont De Nemours v. Monsanto, awarded in 2013.
The list excludes the Apple v. Samsung award which involves both design patents and trademark claims.
Brian Howard, Lex Machina, 19 Dec 2016

The award which was made in 2013 was reduced in 2016. Pfizer, Takeda settle Protonix patent case with generic drugmakers for $2.15 billion.
StarTribune, 12 Jun 2013

The damages award was reversed in 2012 to $26.3 million.
Alcatel-Lucent v. Microsoft Corp
Wikipedia,

FTO analysis: a king among patent searches
Developing and refining products and services is a complex and costly process. Mistakes become exponentially more expensive as this process progresses and can - if they occur at a late stage owing to problems with the production or sale of finished products - easily cost hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of euros. . . . The tool used to assess these risks is a freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis.
European Patent Office's Patent Information News, p12-13, 1 Jan 2016

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The documentation provided by our services can assist in all aspects of the identification, exploitation and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

As the 2022 QPIP award winner, Davinia and Michaela Rasmussen (the 2021 award winner), will be discussing their experiences of the becoming a Qualified Patent Information Professional (QPIP) and in particular the examination itself. The two winners will contribute to Session 3, QPIP certification - the first 5 years with Part 2 of the session focusing on QPIP exam experiences.

The company is fortunate to have such a talented analyst contributing to our company and to the needs of its clients and we congratulate her on her stellar achievement. The award is given by the patent searchers' professional body, the International Standards Board for Qualified Patent Information Professionals (ISBQPIP) to the candidate who obtained the best overall results in the 2022 QPIP examination.

The BPIP is the main UK patent user group. It exists to share best practice and many of its members have achieved QPIP qualified status. It is a group of UK-based representatives of organisations which have interests in patent information matters. Its network of patent information professionals provides a forum for sharing knowledge, experiences and expertise. The BPIP has links with the Confederacy of European Patent Information User Groups (CEPIUG).

Previously Joanne worked at J A Kemp as their Patent Search Manager and she is a familiar face, having began her career at Victor Green & Company. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with an MSci in Chemistry. Her particular area of expertise is small molecule searching as well as having experience of pharmaceuticals and formulation technology. Joanne noted that "This move will consolidate my experience gained from patent search firms and patent attorneys and will enhance my knowledge of chemical patent searching." 4 Jan 2022

After completing her MSci in Physics, she worked as a postgraduate researcher at the University of Glasgow on the fabrication of single electron transistors. She then gained experience at Venner Shipley as a trainee patent attorney, specialising in the fields of data processing, mobile telecommunication, and semiconductor devices. Her experience has also included a year as a special education needs (SEN) teaching assistant as well as certificates in Machine Learning and Data Manipulation with Pandas. 24 Jan 2022

Analysts at Victor Green & Company found that INSPIRE was a useful way to identify and compare sources. INSPIRE could save users time when approaching a new database or new search feature. However, it provided a top-level summary only and it was not possible to drill down into specifics.
See "WIPO’s INSPIRE Offers a New Way to Select Databases for Patent Searches Involving Machine Translations", which appeared on IPWatchdog 12 December 2020.

January 2nd, 2020 marks the centenary of the birth of Isaac Asimov, known as the author of the Foundation stories of galactic empire and for his statement of the Three Laws of Robotics. Eighteen cases were discussed by our patent analysts including three that explicitly invoked Asimov or the Three Laws. Our article appeared in The Global IP Matrix, 6, p22-23, Jan 2020.

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There is a growing interest in blockchain technology, that is accompanying the steep rise in patent applications. Different types of data can be added to a blockchain, from cryptocurrency, transaction and contractual information to data files. The WIPO magazine commented on this trend and the EPO has dedicated a conference to blockchain technologies.