Nokia recently signed an agreement with HTC that will end all ongoing intellectual property disputes with the other company. The businesses also agreed to collaborate on future inventions. The companies revealed little about the deal, but Nokia confirmed HTC will pay it royalties.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative recently published its annual list of both online and physical markets around the world that are engaged in the most intellectual property infringement, such as counterfeiting and pirating. Rather than listing countries, the USTR lists particular markets based on industry reports.

South African President Jacob Zuma signed the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Act (IPLAA) 2013 into law recently. The Act, the brainchild of the Department of Trade and Industry, updates several areas of the country's intellectual property regulations. It now protects historic cultural knowledge like folklore, performance art and designs. Though the idea of protecting indigenous knowledge through intellectual property measures has received support from many, including the World Intellectual Property Organization, critics of the IPLAA say it is too cumbersome to enforce and will cost too much money.

The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Economy recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Korean Intellectual Property Office to develop strategies to improve intellectual property protections in the country, according to Gulf Business. The agreement involves KIPO helping to examine patent applications in the UAE, of which some 2,200 are expected to be processed by the end of the year.

Fashion designers are urging Congress to extend intellectual property protection to fashion design, a move R Street calls unprecedented. In the current fashion market, discount retailers like Forever 21, H&M and Zara draw inspiration from designers to create budget-friendly versions of ready-to-wear looks from the runway. Many designers feel these versions are nearly indistinguishable from their own except for using cheaper materials and processes.

Google Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. have entered a long-term deal to license each other's intellectual property. The agreement, which covers a broad range of products and promises each company "significant value" from its intellectual property, was recently announced. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Imax corporation, which maintains some 150 theaters in China, is facing competition from cheaper rivals in the country who provide similar solutions, according to The New York Times. Indeed, the technology Imax's Chinese competitors use is so similar that the company alleged a former employee, Gary Tsui, also known as Xiaoyu Cui, took the company's trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to or provide engineering support to Chinese rivals. While Tsui denies that this is true, cases are ongoing in the U.S., Canada and China that involve Imax and Tsui. A court in Ontario issued an injunction that ordered Tsui to cease competition with Imax pending trial, and later ordered him detained for noncompliance, though he has remained both free and outside of Canada.

Twitter Inc., which made news for having only nine patents at the time of its initial public offering in November, agreed to purchase 900 patents from International Business Machines Corp. The purpose of this deal is to obtain access to new technology and to begin to build an intellectual property portfolio that will serve as a defense for Twitter against infringement suits. The agreement between Twitter and IBM was signed in December and announced Jan. 31. It also resolves a dispute between the two companies that began when IBM wrote to Twitter last year about possible infringement of three of its patents.

The National Association of Manufacturers recently released a study by Bill Kerr, associate professor at Harvard Business School, and Chad Moutray, chief economist for the NAM. The study found unfair competition facilitated by stolen software has cost U.S. manufacturing nearly $240 billion and 42,220 jobs between 2002 and 2012.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled earlier this month that Costco Wholesale Corporation can proceed with its defense that seeks to prove the "Tiffany setting" is now a generic term, according to Rapaport. Tiffany & Co. sued Costco last year, claiming the wholesale store infringed its trademark "Tiffany setting" and in so doing diluted Tiffany's brand, counterfeited its jewelry and used unfair advertising schemes to sell diamond rings.