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

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

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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Innovation patent system to be abolished: results of the Productivity Commission inquiry

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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World Intellectual Property Report 2017 released – ‘Intangible Capital in Global Value Chains’

Coffee, photovoltaics and smartphones don’t seem to have much in common. But this year’s just released World Intellectual Property Report examines the global value chains for each of these products and the role of intangible capital in these supply chains. As WIPO chief, Frances Gurry notes: Intangible capital – notably in the form of technology, …
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Indonesia signs up to Madrid Protocol

Indonesia has become a member of the Madrid Protocol allowing Australian businesses a second route to trade mark registration in that country. Australian businesses who already own an international trade mark registration should be able to subsequently designate Indonesia from 2 January 2018. Indonesia’s decision to join makes it the 100th member of the Protocol …
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Validation of European patents in Tunisia

Our clients may be interested to note that it will soon be possible to validate European patents in Tunisia. This new development applies in respect of European patent application or international patent applications (PCTs) designating Europe filed on, or after 1, December 2017, for which it will be possible to validate such European patents on …
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