USA

During the heady years of dotcom fever in the late 1990s, two phrases commonly bandied about were “content is free” and “content is king”.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” wrote William Shakespeare in As You Like It. Substitute “screen” for stage and that quote remains as apt four centuries after the play’s first performance.

From a colour‑changing car to a finger‑nibbling cat robot (the Amagami Ham Ham, courtesy of Yukai Engineering and the Liv Heart Corporation, main picture), the recent CES 2022 brought the latest tech ideas from around the world to Las Vegas for a combined in‑person and digital event.

The world’s move from an industrial economy to one based on innovation brings a need to streamline trading in intellectual property (IP) – the oil of the post-industrial realm.

From virtual masterpieces to immersive escape rooms, the licensing industry, for one, has been quick to adapt to the new post‑COVID-19 pandemic reality. This was the key message underlined time and again at the recent 2021 virtual edition of the Licensing Expo, an annual event traditionally held in Las Vegas.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended economic activity across the globe over the past one and a half years, but one obvious beneficiary has been e-commerce which has grown in leaps and bounds as customers stay away from shops and restaurants. This change has been marked in the United States, home of the shopping mall.