Editor’s picks: top Managing IP stories of 2024

It’s been a busy and transformational year at Managing IP.

Over the past 12 months, we’ve launched several new features including the Talent Tracker and What Corporates Want reports, produced our annual listings including the renowned 50 most influential people in IP, and enhanced our rankings and awards coverage.

We’ve also refined our regular content to focus more on the business side of law.

To mark the end of the year, here is a mixture of our top picks as well as some of the most-read articles.

December marked the release of Managing IP’s list of the 50 people who had the most influence in IP this year. There were a few themes in the list. The world of standard-essential patents and FRAND licensing loomed large. The Unified Patent Court enjoyed its first full calendar year in operation. Diversity and mental wellbeing continued to play a key role in business affairs. See who made it – and if your name appears.

Read the full article here.

We recongised women trailblazers in one of several articles this year that highlighted our rankings products. Women leaders at Bird & Bird, Baker McKenzie, Hogan Lovells, and Dentons were among those recognised in rankings published by IP STARS, Managing IP’s accreditation title. As part of the research, the IP STARS team received data from more than 1,700 firms and contacted well over 5,000 IP practitioners worldwide for market surveys and interviews.

Read the full article here. The Top 250 Women in IP, the leading IP practitioners, and general firm rankings for IP are also available to view in full on ipstars.com.

Continuing our theme of enhanced accreditation coverage, June saw us delve into the IP STARS rankings for patent work. Firms such as Williams & Connolly and COPA Copenhagen Patents climbed the ranks. More than 850 firms were listed for their patent work across 51 jurisdictions. The Managing IP editorial team does not select these rankings, but we sat down with IP STARS’ global research editor Kingsley Egbuonu, and Americas editor Chris Adams to learn more about trends affecting the rankings and why some firms were promoted.

Read the full article here. The full rankings are available at ipstars.com.

Discussions around patent quality at the EPO loomed large in 2024. In this article, we reported from an industry event where speakers from in-house and academia outlined why high-quality patents are so important for legal certainty. It came amid some concern that the EPO has prioritised grant rates and productivity over quality. This conference, in which the colourful phrase from the headline was used, was held by the Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC). The IPQC is a group of patent owners that has warned that the EPO doesn’t spend enough time on the examination of patents and is too quick to grant as a matter of course.

Read the full article here.

An example of our enhanced focus on the business of law, in this article we spoke to various law firms about how they have reshaped their IP departments to meet client demands. The nature of IP work is changing as technology becomes more integrated in clients’ businesses. Traditional barriers between IP rights break down and clients increasingly need strategic advice that crosses borders. In response, big law firms, some of which spoke to us for this article, are changing how they organise their IP teams.

Read the full article here.

In January, Managing IP launched Talent Tracker, an interactive database of partner moves that provides insight into hiring trends across the IP space. Reported IP partner moves appear in the Tracker, as well as the country in which they’re based, what firm they’re moving to and from, and the date of the reported move. We’ve so far produced three reports and will publish another in January.

Read more here. The three reports can be accessed here.

In September, Managing IP brought you the fourth edition of IP Ones to Watch: 20 In-House on the Rise. The list for 2024 showcases emerging talent in the in-house IP world. Our 20 winners were whittled down from a long list of recommendations made in a survey conducted early in the year. Respondents were asked to nominate up to three junior or new in-house practitioners in their companies or at other businesses. Our editorial team conducted thorough research to verify the nominees’ suitability and credentials, often speaking directly to the nominators.

Read the full article and see all the people included here.

Patent practitioners in Europe welcomed an announcement in July that the UPC and the EPO had signed a cooperation agreement on IT matters. The first part of that project, according to the UPC and EPO, was to develop a case management system (CMS) for the court. The existing CMS has been much criticised by users and has, at times, threatened to cast a shadow over the UPC’s operations.

Read the full article here.

In January, Managing IP+ launched a series of reports called What Corporates Want. The reports provide exclusive insights into how law firms’ performance on issues such as billing rates, client management, communication, ESG, diversity, and other factors shape in-house hiring decisions. With a new theme every month, the series combines expert analysis and survey data from 25,000 in-house counsel, giving law firms the tools they need to enhance their competitiveness and capture the attention of corporate counsel effectively.

Read more and access all reports here.

In keeping with our enhanced awards coverage, Managing IP brought you all the news from our flagship awards ceremony in April. We presented more than 250 prizes for legal excellence at an exhilarating evening in London where over 600 guests joined us at the Hilton on Park Lane to celebrate the biggest achievements in the IP sector. Hogan Lovells was the top law firm performer of the evening, while Nokia, Novartis, Ocado, and Vodafone took home the prestigious in-house awards.

Read the full article here. You can also find reports from our Asia-Pacific Awards here, and our Americas Awards here.