Deferred Examination or Not?

The USPTO has announced that it will host roundtable on deferred examination on February 12, 2009, from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the agency.(link to Federal Register)
According to the announcement, "The goal of the roundtable is to obtain public input on deferred examination from diverse sources and differing viewpoints".
It is interesting to note that the public will also be able to access the event via a live webcast.
I believe that there are pros and cons associated with deferred examination.
In Canada for instance we already have a system where examination is not automatic and may be deferred until 5 years after the filing date of the patent application or even more (1 extra year) if a fee is paid to reinstate the then abandoned patent application.

But seriously, what is the point of waiting so many years to have a patent application examined and a corresponding patent possibly granted when the monopoly is limited, in any cases, in time?

Patent Litigation In The US: A Change In the Trends?

According to the Stanford Law School's IP Litigation Clearinghouse (link), the number of patent infringement cases filed in the US was 2,605 in 2008, down by about 8% from 2007. Since 2005, the number of infringement cases was increasing year after year.
It seems that most of the decrease occurred in the last five months of 2008. During that period the filings decreased by 23% compared to the previous year.
I guess that it is fair to say that the economic downturn is responsible for that situation, at least partly. Since patent litigation in the US is a very costly avenue to take, the incentive to settle down may become more attractive when access to financing becomes more complicated.
The question now is whether this trend will be confirmed in the news months or not?

Still Number One!

IBM has announced (link) that it has obtained 4,186 patents in 2008 and is still number 1 in the rankings (for over 15 years!).
IBM is followed by respectively Samsung (3515), Canon (2114), Microsoft (2030) and Intel (1776).
IBM has also announced that it plans to :"increase by 50% -- to more than 3,000 -- the number of technical inventions it publishes annually instead of seeking patent protection."
Is this a shift in the IBM innovation patenting strategy?
The patent portfolio of IBM exceeds 40000 patents.

No Recession At The Indian Patent Office

According to the Economic Times (link), the Indian Patent Office is going to hire 1500 people.

In the last fiscal year:

• over 15000 patents have been granted in India (most of them got (approx 80%) to foreign applicants); and
• More than 35000 patent applications have been filed during that time.

IP Resources Of Interest

The UK Trade and Investment website has published IP guides for the following countries:

• China (link);
• Brasil (link);
• India (link);
• Korea (link); and
• Vietnam (link).

Those guides provide basic principles of intellectual property and rights in a global environment and are intended to help the managers of (UK) small and medium enterprises.