Way more than an everyday interest in IP
As the dust settles on last Saturday’s Federal election, one of the more interesting outcomes to emerge is the likely election of six new Senators from five ‘micro’ parties – the Palmer United Party, the Family First party, the Australian Motor Enthusiast Party, the Australian Sports Party and the Liberal Democrats. One of the incoming read more…
The world’s wealth is increasingly becoming centred on intellectual capital, according to Dr Francis Gurry at his presentation at Melbourne University on Thursday 22 August 2013. Dr Gurry is the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), and the highest-ranking Australian official in a United Nations agency. The organisers of the fifth annual read more…
For those of us rounding up our 25,000 closest friends for a ‘We The People’ petition in the USA, we have some bad news. Only a few days after we posted about the now infamous ‘Death Star’ petition, the White House blogged that due to the popularity of the site, the numbers needed to obtain read more…
Later this year, Australians will go to the polls after being almost buried under an avalanche of policy commitments from both sides. As we speak, politicians are no doubt dusting off their Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, ready to speak on-message to constituents about ‘the things that matter’. Recognising that engagement by social media must, read more…
Wearing a red nose has never been so controversial. In Australia, the National SIDS Council of Australia (NSCAL) runs Red Nose Day to raise money for research into ‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome’. In New Zealand, Cure Kids (CK) is an organisation that raises money for various diseases that affect children. Recently, CK has revived its read more…
The Federal Government has proposed changes to the innovation patent system, and is seeking public comment. The proposed amendments would require innovation patent applications to demonstrate the same level of inventive step as a standard patent. In 2001, the Patents Act 1990 was amended to create a new lesser class of patents to replace petty patents read more…
While effective patent law protects the financial returns on investment in R&D, thereby encouraging more people to invent new things, ineffective patent law can create roadblocks to innovation as patent owners exclude competitors from using and developing their inventions.
The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) today released the Issues Paper for its current enquiry into copyright and the digital economy. The review focuses on the suitability of the current law in the evolving digital marketplace.
The ALRC is seeking comment on a number of issues including:
It’s official – with the successful passage of the necessary referral legislation through all states and territories, the new national business names legislation is expected to commence on 28 May 2012.