In Primary Health Care Limited v Commonwealth of Australia [2017] FCAFC 174, the Full Federal Court found the applicant’s trade marks were incapable of distinguishing the services of the subject of the application, in part because the target audience for those services included patients and the public health sector generally – not merely medical practitioners …
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Background Moroccanoil Israel Ltd (MIL) successfully obtained injunctions restricting the sale of some of the supermarket chain Aldi’s lookalike products in the recent case of Moroccanoil Israel Ltd v Aldi Foods Pty Ltd [2017] FCA 823. Aldi’s conduct was found to be misleading and deceptive in relation to claims regarding the performance benefits of the …
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David Longmuir of Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick Lawyers and Mark Wickham of Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick recently acted for Rozenberg & Co in successfully opposing the grant of Australian Patent Application 2010294197 for a “method for the preparation of micro-RNA and its therapeutic application” in the name of Velin-Pharma A/S – see Rozenberg & Co Pty Ltd …
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Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick would like to extend an official welcome to our newest lawyer in the POFL team, Alexis Keating. Alexis is joining our Melbourne office, bringing with her six years of experience in the legal industry across general commercial litigation, property law and criminal law. Alexis holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a …
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Background In October 2017, IP Australia released an Exposure Draft of the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill (the draft Bill). The draft Bill follows a public inquiry by the Productivity Commission into Australia’s IP framework and seeks to implement a number of the Commission’s recommendations, together with …
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The infringement case in Nichia Corporation v Arrow Electronics Australia Pty Ltd (No. 4) [2017] FCA 864 turned on the meaning of ‘contains’ and illustrates the importance of such terms in claim construction under Australian practice. Background Nichia is the patentee of Patent No. 720234 filed on 29 July 1997 in relation to a light emitting …
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The Registrar of Designs in Apple Inc [2017] ADO 6 ruled that a design for a display screen is not a new and distinctive design because the display screen at rest, that is in the powered-off state, is simply a blank representation which therefore cannot be new or distinctive. The decision has formalised what was …
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The Australian Government recently released its response to the Productivity Commission’s (PC) inquiry into Australia’s intellectual property (IP) system. These recommendations include the significant change of abolishing Australia’s innovation patent system, further raising of the bar on the inventive step threshold for patents, and the replacement of existing exceptions to copyright infringement. Abolishment of the …
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This week, Auckland, New Zealand, played host to the annual council meeting of the Asian Patent Attorneys Association (APAA). The principal objective of APAA is to promote and enhance intellectual property protection throughout the Asia region. The association includes approximately 2,400 members across 20 countries such as Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore and …
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Yesterday marked the 2017 Graeme Clark Oration, of which POF is very proud to be a long-time sponsor. The Oration informs the community about scientific advances in health and medical research, delivered by recognised global leaders in their field. This year the Oration was delivered by Dr Harold Varmus and focussed on ’Transitions in Cancer …
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