Way more than an everyday interest in IP
Further to our post on 22 June 2011, following the second reading speech of the Property Laws Amendment (Raising The Bar) Bill 2011 the debate on this important reform legislation has been adjourned. No date has been set down for the Bill to be debated by the Senate and we await confirmation of whether the Bill will be sent to a Senate Committee for further deliberation.
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On 23 June 2011, the French Health Minister proposed significant reforms to the French pharmaceutical regulatory system.
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In February this year we blogged about the integration of patent application and examination procedures in Australia and New Zealand. Further details regarding the implementation of this scheme have now emerged with Australia’s Innovation Minister, Senator Kim Carr, and New Zealand’ read more…
This was the question that the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia was asked to consider in Seafood Innovations Pty Ltd v Richard Bass Pty Ltd [2011] FCAFC 83. Essentially, fish stunning is a process whereby a freshly caught fish is concussed prior to death in order to minimise stress and retain optimal taste and texture in the flesh of the fish.
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A recent decision of the Federal Court has emphasised the difficulty associated with seeking summary judgment in patent matters, where issues of invalidity are often complex and require expert evidence. In such circumstances, it is very difficult to show that the opposing party has no reasonable prospects of success.
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Further to our post on 15 March 2011, the Property Laws Amendment (Raising The Bar) Bill 2011 was introduced to the Senate late last week for consideration and debate. This is the first step in the process of the Bill becoming law. The Bill proposes to make a number of significant amendments to the Patents Act 1990, Trade Marks Act 1995, Designs Act 2003 and Plant Breeders Rights Act 1994, with the amendments intended to encourage innova read more…
In what is seeming like the never ending fight over a dip tube patent, the Federal Court has handed another win to VIP Plastic Packaging in its long running dispute with BMW Plastics regarding a patent for a “variable-length dip tube for a fluid transfer container”. One wonders if this latest ruling is the knock-out that VIP Plastic Packaging needed to end the fight once and for all.
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Following from our previous post, on 3 June 2011, the Federal Government released its responses to the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) report entitled Post-Grant Patent Enforcement Strategies. In its report, ACIP made a number of recommendations to reduce the e read more…
Further to our previous post, the European Commission has recently launched an official investigation into a settlement agreement made between the US company Cephalon, and the Israeli generic medicine manufacturer, Teva.
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