Way more than an everyday interest in IP
At the start of this week the US Senate gave overwhelming support to the America Invents Act of 2011 (“Bill“) that proposes to overhaul the entire US patent system. A copy of the Bill can be obtained here.
The key provisions of the Bill include:
On 16 February 2011, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and New Zealand Prime Minister John Keys made a joint announcement regarding the integration of the patent examination procedures in Australia and New Zealand. The announcement is a key part of the Trans Tasman Single Economic Market concept, one component of which is the integration of the intellectual property systems of the two countries to provide:
Further to our post on 2 December 2010 updating you on the introduction to the Senate of the Patent Amendment (Human Genes and Biological Materials) Bill 2010 (Senate Bill), a private members bill, the Patent Amendment (Human Genes and Biological Materials) Bill 2010 (Bill), was introduced to the House of Representatives last Monday. The Bill, which is in su read more…
In December we discussed the impact of the new Personal Properties Securities Act: see Crosstown Music bitten by partial assignment of copyright. On 13 February 2011, the Council of Australian Governments decided to defer the commencent of the PPSA regime from May 2011 until October 2011. read more…
The Australian Council of Intellectual Property (ACIP) has completed its review of the appropriateness and adequacy of the test of “manner of manufacture” as a threshold requirement for patentability. Submissions were sought in 2008, public forums were conducted in 2009, and a Report was provided to the Minister in December 2010. Yesterday, a report was released recommending a statutory test that is consistent with the test which is currently applied by the Courts.
In December last year, Justice Emmett of the Federal Court handed down an important decision for originator pharmaceutical companies who seek access to documents evidencing applications to list generic versions of their products on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG), and generic companies who assume such applications are kept confidential.
On Tuesday 25 January 2011, a bill to reform patent law in the US was introduced into Congress with bipartisan support. The reform bill aims to simplify the patent application process, improve patent quality and keep the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) independently funded. It marks the fourth consecutive time the Senate has attempted to implement patent reform.
The recent impersonation of Brisbane’s Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman on Twitter, is a timely reminder of the substantial scope that exists for people to be impersonated online. Internet sites such as Twitter and Facebook lend themselves to such impersonations due to the lack of requirements for authentication of identity when registering accounts on these sites. Twitter impersonation has become increasingly widespread, with other politician read more…
Following 18 months of extensive consultations on potential reforms of the patent system, IP Australia has recently implemented a number of changes to examination practices intended to improve the quality of examination and the certainty in the validity of granted patent rights. The changes relate to: