Less than 24 hours after delivering the State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama took to a more casual forum to field questions from the American public in a Google Hangout session. In a wide-ranging discussion that touched upon everything from gun control to Valentine's Day plans, the president candidly discussed the country's evolving patent management practices.

With approximately one month remaining before the first to file provision of the America Invents Act goes into effect, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published its final rules and guidelines governing implementation.

Electronic design automation specialists from Tela Innovations have filed two separate suits against several market-leading mobile handset manufacturers it suggests have infringed upon patented technologies related to the automation of integrated-circuit manufacturing processes.

Companies around the world have been carefully interpreting how the continued influx of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) may affect their respective online presence. According to the latest research from digital branding specialists at Melbourne IT DBS, larger firms should be careful not to let their trademark management strategies wander too far from traditional .com domains, however.

Smartphones have earned a reputation for being a disruptive technology within the business community in recent years, unlocking previously unimaginable productivity gains and introducing commensurate security risks. According to Business Software Alliance chairman Clayton Noble, one of the lesser known emerging threats are the copyright complications created by employees using pirated mobile applications.

As the tenure of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director David Kappos comes to an end this week, patent community pundits have been attempting to summarize the events and determine the legacy of his three-and-a-half-year run. Kappos was gracious enough to sit down with two leading publications to offer his own take as well.

The monetary and strategic value of intellectual property has consistently grown as markets around the world tilt toward an economy that is majority knowledge-based. While this realization is not lost on today's companies, some suggest that the fear of protracted litigation is keeping them from exploring more aggressive patent management strategies.

Social gaming startup Zynga got off to a strong start following its 2007 launch, ultimately becoming a publicly traded company in late 2011. With market analysts now starting to question the sustainability of its business model, Zynga's revitalized patent strategy seems to suggest a move into the online gambling space.

Mobile internet innovator Unwired Planet, formerly Openwave Systems, has acquired more than 2,000 registered patents and pending applications from Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson. The deal is expected to provide Unwired Planet with additional ammunition in its ongoing litigation with Apple, Google and others while affording Ericsson a share of future licensing revenues.

Firms have been filing provisional patent applications in the U.S. for nearly two decades, and the impending transition to a first to file system is expected to expand the popularity of the procedural mechanism. However, some are wondering if the rate of activity is an accurate indicator of the strategy's true value.