Inspired - The POF blog

Be aware – IP owners targeted by scammers

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Owners of patents, trade marks and registered designs are increasingly being targeted by unscrupulous organisations with fake invoices and unethical business practices. It is important that you and your accounting teams are alert to this. Check that invoice! Being an IP owner means that you will be required to pay annuities. These are payable every …
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Happy New Year and welcome to 2018!

We’d like to wish all of our readers a happy and prosperous new year as we begin 2018. 2017 was an eventful year in the Australian intellectual property (IP) industry. We saw the results of Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Australia’s IP system which has led to the phasing out of the innovation patent, and there’s …
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Full Court rejects registration of PRIMARY HEALTH CARE

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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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Australia’s grace period provisions apply to whole of contents documents published after the end of the grace period

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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Evolva hits sweet spot for ‘sufficiency’ under new Act

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On 15 April 2013 the ‘bar was raised’ on the Patents Act 1990.  While the law relating to sufficiency changed, there has been very little guidance as to how this change would be applied. Evolva SA [2017] APO 57 now provides some clarity as to the level of detail required in a specification. Background Evolva …
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Proposed changes to the Plant Breeder’s Rights system

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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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