An interesting precedent will be provided by the outcome of a pending Nintendo patent application regarding methods for MMOG players to collectively alter a virtual environment without directly interacting with each other. (In filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during 2012, Nintendo has substantially narrowed the claims with respect to those in the original 2010 application.) Nintendo, of course, is a game company, not an individual player.

FORBES: Online Games And Crowdsourced Creativity: The Next Frontier In Intellectual Property

The agreement also bars Australia's patent agency from approving generic versions of a drug while a patent application is pending.

ECONOMIST: Drug pricing

Teva had asked for communications not related to the patent-in-suit, but to seven co-pending patent applications that it claimed Eisai failed to disclose to the patent examiner in charge of the application that led to its Aricept patent-in-suit.

FORBES: Teva Agrees To End IP Suit Over Aricept Patent