Solutions for Small Business, a coalition of top cable providers, announced Wednesday plans for a webcast that will advise small business owners on how to best protect themselves from malicious emails, cyber attacks and data theft.

In a symbolic, and perhaps ironic, sign of protest against anti-piracy lobbies, the activist group Operation Payback targeted the United Kingdom's Intellectual Property Office, knocking its site offline.

The California Attorney General's Office announced Friday the arrest of a con man accused of defrauding entrepreneurs by promising to help them secure patents for inventions, and then stealing the products and selling the patent rights for thousands of dollars. The stolen inventions ranged from complex software programs to gardening tools.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement continues to stir up debate around the world, as experts and industry analysts have begun to reflect on the most recent release of the international treaty drafted in Tokyo last week.

To add to its recent ousting of Japan as the second-largest economy in the world, China is also poised to surpass both Japan and the United States in patent filings by next year, according to a report by Thompson-Reuters.

The UK government is facing a "real and credible" security threat on its massive expanse of private information and intellectual property. Speaking to the International Institute for Strategic Studies Wednesday, GCHQ director Iain Lobban declared that malicious software, email and other digital mediums have already significantly disrupted government systems.

The first spark of an idea may be the easiest stage in developing the concept into a successful business model. Before anything can be done, a business plan must be written. And before you can market and sell an invention, you must patent your creation. Likewise, before you can sell a software program, service or even work of literature, you must acquire a copyright.

Apple is challenging a ruling made last week by a jury in Tyler, Texas, declaring the computer giant had infringed upon a patent by a small technology company called Mirror Worlds. The ruling orders Apple to pay $208.5 million to each of three separate patents - making the total of $625.5 million one of the largest in patent lawsuit history.