Past editions of Managing Business Risk have featured a wide variety of topics. Areas of risk management that were highlighted have ranged successively from change and continuity, integrity, corporate governance and accountability to crime and terror, and from good practice, innovation and expansion to the use of IT in risk solutions. The 2009 edition was focused on corporate risk, areas of legal risk and risk in managing sustainables. The primary focus of this new edition is on risk in intellectual property (IP), in terms both of identification and management and of the various aspects of patent filing and defence, and litigation in the event of infringement. These topics occupy two of the five parts of the book. Readers may ask themselves why the 2010 edition should concentrate to this degree on IP. Steve Fowler’s thought-provoking Foreword provides the clue. At a time when businesses are still coming to terms with the after-effects of the credit crunch and a slow emergence from recession, the most successful firms will be those ‘that capitalize intelligently on the emergence of new markets, products and routes to business’. The creation, safeguarding and maintenance of IP are integral to this activity and may give a company the critical competitive edge in developing and expanding its business. The three remaining parts of Managing Business Risk this year cover risk management strategies (Part 1), which are of key concern at board level, the management of insurance and legal liability risks (Part 2) and core topics of operational risk management in current business conditions (Part 4). In these areas, we welcome back regular contributors from previous editions who have chosen to write on new topics or have returned to their areas of expertise and updated their texts. Of the 15 chapters on IP topics in Parts 3 and 5, all but one are authored by leading international experts from firms based in continental Western Europe and one in California. This international coverage is, of course, entirely appropriate to the risk management of patents, copyright and trademarks, which are by definition of an international nature, and confirms the global attention that professional IP management commands today. Together, they provide a comprehensive study of the subject.

Steve Fowler of the Institute of Risk Management (IRM), our publishing associate, and Marie Gemma Dequae of the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA), with whose writing readers of previous editions will be familiar, have written the Foreword and the Preface respectively for this edition. We offer our sincere thanks to them, as well as to all chapter authors for their contributions. The Contributors’ Notes section of the book, which precedes this Introduction, provides biographical detail of all authors and their firms. Readers who wish to get in touch with any author will find contact details at the end of the book. As always, the sponsorship and advertisements of many contributors are an essential ingredient to the publication of Managing Business Risk, and our thanks are due to them for their participation. In my Introduction to the 2009 edition I wondered what would be the dominant themes of this edition; again, without any prior knowledge, I shall look forward to the next collection of topics that contributors to the 2011 edition select