 | MALCOLM ROYAL
Patent Attorney
25/04/1941 – 21/10/2006
|  With the passing of Malcolm Royal after a four-year battle with cancer, Australia has lost one of its highest profile patent attorneys.
A towering figure in the relatively obscure patent attorney profession, Malcolm was a leader of his firm and the Australian and international professional institutes.
One of two children, Malcolm was born in Richmond, Victoria, Australia in 1941.
His father Edward Jack was an engineer and owner of Royal & Co, a Carlton-based manufacturer of caravan shells, and of axles and springs for racing cars.
Malcolm attended the Tyler Street Primary School in suburban Preston, followed by Preston Technical School, after which he studied applied chemistry at Footscray Technical College (now part of Victoria University), and obtained his diploma in 1958.
In 1964, Malcolm married Margaret (Maggie) Liszt, then a nurse. Margaret became well known in the close-knit patent attorney profession, accompanying Malcolm to many conferences, both in Australia and overseas.
Following graduation, Malcolm joined the Australian Patent Office in Canberra, where he became an Examiner of Patents and developed a life-long love of education.
This focus on education manifested early, with Malcolm becoming Training Officer in Patent Law in the Patent Office, at a young age.
In 1964, Malcolm left the Patent Office and joined the CSIRO Patent Licensing Section in Melbourne, where he assisted to commercialise a number of significant inventions, frequently with research scientists of international standing.
In 1970 Malcolm joined Phillips Ormonde & Fitzpatrick, then an 82 year-old Melbourne-based patent attorney firm with four partners.
He qualified for registration as a Patent Attorney in 1971 and was made a partner of the firm in 1972.
In 1990, Malcolm became Phillips Ormonde & Fitzpatrick’s Managing Partner, a position he held until 2005, when his health deteriorated.
In his time as Managing Partner, the firm grew significantly (from 8 to 25 partners), built an associated law firm and established a separate IP research company.
Notwithstanding his obligations to his firm, Malcolm was able to be an unbelievably active member of numerous professional organisations. These included: The Royal Australian Chemical Institute; The Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia (IPTA); International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys (FICPI); the Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand, Inc; the Licensing Executives Society International (LESI); the Asian Patent Attorneys Association (APAA); and the International Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (AIPPI).
Not satisfied with mere membership, Malcolm was actively involved in many committees of these associations. Most noteworthy, he achieved the top roles of the two leading professional organisations for Australian patent attorneys. He was International President of FICPI from 2000 to 2003 and President of IPTA from 2004 until early 2006.
He was also a member of the Royal Society of Australia. This is not an association related to his name, but is an esteemed body for the promotion of science and technology.
Malcolm’s passion about education is reflected by his many professional roles, including: Chair of IPTA’s Academy of Education from 1995 to 2004 (a body which Malcolm played an important role in establishing); and President of FICPI’s Training and Education Commission from 1998 to 2000 and again from 2003.
He was a member of the Advisory Board of the Graduate Program in Intellectual Property Law at Melbourne University (2000-2003) and, from 2001 he was a Member of the Intellectual Property Advisory Board at Monash University. From 2002 to 2005, he was a member of the Singapore Patent Attorney Qualifying Examination Committee.
Malcolm was a former member of the Commonwealth’s Professional Standards Board for Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys, as well as the Advisory Council for Industrial Property (an independent body established to provide advice to the relevant Federal Government and the Australian Patent Office), and the Intellectual Property Working Party for Federal Government Innovation Summit from 2000.
Notwithstanding his numerous professional roles, Malcolm maintained a substantial professional practice. He was particularly known for his expertise in some of the more difficult aspects of the profession, such as Court proceedings for extension of the term for important pharmaceutical patents.
Malcolm also had a talent for getting difficult cases back on the rails, but rarely was he responsible for derailing cases in the first place.
In March 2002, Malcolm was diagnosed with brain cancer. Surgical intervention and chemotherapy allowed him to maintain his very active professional life until 2005, when his health declined again.
He treated his illness as an inconvenience and refused, until the end, to let it interfere with his work or what he saw to be his commitments to colleagues and friends.
After stepping down as Managing Partner on 30 June 2005, Malcolm took on the role of Client Liaison Partner until his retirement in March 2006.
Malcolm’s leadership in the profession was recognised by the Commonwealth Government, which awarded him the Centenary Medal April 2003 for outstanding service to the advancement of Australian and international intellectual property.
Through a combination of good judgement, sound professional knowledge, and a systematic approach, Malcolm was able to balance a punishing professional life with his family life.
He loved the family’s annual escape from the Melbourne winter. Initially this was a camping holiday on the banks of the Murray River. In recent years, it was a break in Queensland.
He enjoyed trail-bike riding, windsurfing and golf and had a life-long devotion to the Collingwood Football Club.
Malcolm’s keen sense of humour is demonstrated through a race meeting organised at a FICPI conference in Broome, Australia. A previous conference in Hong Kong had included a race meeting at the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Malcolm’s race meeting consisted of races between two horses that had never seen a race track before and a donkey! The races were rigged to ensure the donkey won each race.
Malcolm is survived by his mother, Edith Jean, his wife, Margaret, their three daughters, Sally, Jodie and Emma, grand-children, Thomas, Pennara, Anna and Lily-Rose, and by his sister Janette.
Malcolm was a long time supporter of Cottage by the Sea, and in recent years he enabled the organization to establish a maintenance program which covered employment of a part time worker along with resources to carry out ongoing numerous maintenance tasks.
Attendees at the funeral were asked to make a donation to Cottage by the Sea in lieu of sending flowers.
Cottage by the Sea, located at the seaside township of Queenscliff in Victoria, is a children’s charity that provides camps for over 860 primary school aged children each year from families in need throughout the state.
If you would like to find out more about this fantastic organization, visit their website by clicking the logo below.
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