Posts Tagged: "Australia"

Are Australia’s listed IP firms doomed to fail?

Over the last two years, the Australian patent and trade mark attorney profession has seen a number of significant changes. The 2013 amendments to the Patents Act 1990, meant that Australian patent and trade mark attorney firms could incorporate. This led to the consolidation of some of Australia’s biggest patent and trade mark attorney firms. These consolidated firms have subsequently listed on the Australian Stock Exchange to raise capital and have since been on an aggressive acquisition spree to achieve market dominance… In short, there are inherent conflicts of interest when an individual or entity is obliged to act for both clients and shareholders.

Hop on the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) via Australia

IP Australia actually has built into its quota system a driver for completing prosecution of open cases before taking up new cases. Therefore, there is a rule inside IP Australia that an Examiner must respond to communication from an applicant within 20 days of receiving the applicant’s communication. Oftentimes, it is sooner. Therefore, an application will not languish at the bottom of the Examiner’s work pile and the case will get attention from the Examiner in short order.

Protection of Official Names of States and Prevention of their Registration and Use as Trademarks

Protection of the official names of States and prevention of their registration and use as trademarks have been the focus of attention of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications at the World Intellectual Property Organization (the “SCT”) for over six years (since June 2009). Each of the WIPO Member States has both its own national procedures with their peculiarities and some coinciding positions on the subject. Generally speaking, when performing the examination, the competent national authority examines the sign applied for registration as a trademark and consisting of or containing the name of a State in light of formal and substantive legal requirements, like any other sign.

World Intellectual Property Indicators 2015: Design Patent Highlights

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published its annual World Intellectual Property Indicators. The 2015 report dissects the macro trends associated with filing activity and registrations for 2014 in the following intellectual property areas: patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and plant varieties… The twenty-year era of growth in industrial design patent applications came to an abrupt end in 2014… The decline in global applications stems primarily from the pronounced decrease in resident filings at the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO), which fell 14.9% over the past year.

Australia Releases Guidelines on Patentability of Genetic Material – Now That’s How It’s Done

The Australian Patent Office yesterday released its new guidelines in response to Australia’s High Court decision on the patentability of genetic material. The good news for Australia, though cold comfort for us on the other side of the Pacific, is that the Australian Patent Office has shown our counterpart US institutions the correct way to interpret and apply an important new case carving specific subject matter out of the broad default of patent eligibility. Rather than declaring ineligible from patenting everything under the sun “involving” a law or product of nature, Australia has instead read the High Court’s decision faithfully yet narrowly to exclude exactly what it said it excluded.