July 2018

Copyright modernisation …

Following the close of submissions on its Copyright Modernisation consultation paper, the Department of Communications and the Arts has made available online the 89 public submissions.

Go here (and scroll down).

As you were scrolling down, you will notice that the “homepage” also includes some details about the six “roundtables” on specific topics:

  • quotation and educational uses of copyright
  • contracting out
  • incidental or technical uses of copyright
  • government uses
  • orphan works
  • libraries and archive use

Unfortunately, and despite all the official inquiries to the contrary, all indications are that yet again we shall be going down the path of inflexible exceptions.

Apparently, the next stage contemplated is an information session for interested stakeholders, to provide a general overview of the views and evidence raised in submissions, proposed for early September.

Copyright modernisation … Read More »

Productivity Commission implementation part 2

IP Australia has released draft legislation for the proposed Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill (Productivity Commission Response Part 2 and Other Measures) Bill 2018.

Schedule 1 of the proposed bill includes measures to:

  • amend inventive step requirements for Australian patents (to bring them into line with the imagined approach of the EPO;
  • introduce an objects clause into the Patents Act 1990
  • phase out the abomination innovation patent system.

Well, 1 out of 3 is not so bad.

Schedules 2 – 4 propose the mooted amendments to the Crown use provisions (both patents and designs) and the compulsory licensing provisions.

There are also streamlining measures and “technical improvements” in schedules 5 to 7.

Download the draft bill, the draft EM and consultation questions from here.

Written submissions are due by 31 August 2018.

Productivity Commission implementation part 2 Read More »

INTA is coming Down Under

For the first time in 10 years, INTA is holding a 2 day conference in Sydney on 11 – 12 October 2018.

Topics that will be covered include:

  • Balancing IP rights and regulatory restrictions
  • Bringing your business online: the view from China
  • The important role IP Offices play in supporting economic growth
  • Advertising and Data Privacy: Be Prepared
  • Enforcement in the New WHOIS Reality
  • Ad words and metatags
  • Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
  • 3D printing: a positive disruption
  • Ambush marketing
  • Anticounterfeiting

A more detailed breakdown of the program is here.

Overview and registration, here.

INTA is coming Down Under Read More »

GSK’s extended release paracetamol patent 2

In addition to dismissing GSK’s appeal against the construction of “basket” (noted here), the Full Court also dismissed Apotex’ cross-appeals on fair basis and best method.

Fair basis

Apotex and Generic Partners also lost their appeals against the trial judge’s ruling that GSK’s patent was fairly based and there had been no failure to disclose the best method.

On fair basis, the claims were consistent with the consistory clauses, but Apotex argued the body of the specification showed that the invention was narrower than the broad consistory clauses. This appears to have been an attempt to read the claims down to two specific formulations discussed in the specification, Formulations C and D.

A key point was whether the trial judge had impermissibly taken into account information in an FDA report to ascertain if the claims travelled beyond the disclosure in the specification. Apotex argued this was excluded by the High Court’s decision in the first Lockwood decision, where it had said at [48]:

If all that is essential in assessing a fair basing objection is recourse to the contents of the specification, there is no call, for example, for an examination (except on construction questions) of common general knowledge (which is essential when considering an objection based on want of an inventive step), or of prior art (which is essential when considering novelty (s 7(1))) …

The Full Court, however, rejected this attack; concluding that the information in the FDA Report (which was common general knowledge) informed how the skilled addressee would understand the claims. At [166], the Full Court said:

What is critical to the pharmacokinetic behaviour of the many formulations within the claims is the dissolution profile (or release rate) of the formulation. The primary judge accepted that the FDA Report recognised that a variation of ±10% percentage points in the release rate was acceptable to the FDA even where no IVIVC had been established. This provides evidentiary support for the finding that the skilled addressee would know that various formulations within the claims apart from Formulations C and D were likely to have similar pharmacokinetic properties. This also provides a complete answer to Apotex’s argument that the skilled addressee (equipped with the common general knowledge) would approach the Patent with an understanding that there would be no reason to think that other formulations within the claims would have a similar pharmacokinetic profile to Formulations C and D in the absence of any established IVIVC.

The Full Court also rejected Apotex’ argument that a claim could not be fairly based unless the specification explained why the claims worked. Making it clear that they were dealing only with the position before the Raising the Bar Act reforms, the Full Court said at [170]:

Of course, it is important to note that s 40(2)(a) requires that the complete specification “describe the invention fully”. A complete specification may still “describe the invention fully” without explaining why the invention works. After all, the inventor, who presumably believes that the invention described works, may not understand why it works. But this does not prevent him or her from obtaining patent protection for the invention.

Best method

For best method, the argument built on the Servier ruling to argue there had been a failure to disclose the best method because the specification did not disclose the particular grade or viscosity of the high viscosity HPMC or the granulation end points used to make Formulations C and D.

At [192], the Full Court accepted that there could be a failure of best method if information was withheld even though it could be ascertained by routine experiment. The Full Court rejected the best method attack, however, finding that the information omitted was inessential manufacturing and production information. According to the Full Court at [201]:

It does not follow merely because the patent applicant uses a particular manufacturing process or a particular excipient in formulating its commercial embodiment that it will form part of the best method. The patent applicant may have adopted a particular process, or used a particular excipient, for reasons that are associated with its own particular circumstances rather than because it believes that they reflect the best method. The best method known to the patent applicant may be one that allows for the optimisation of a formulation by the skilled addressee rather than one that adheres to one specific formulation that the patent applicant seeks to commercialise.

Those preparing specifications might want, first, to note the reservation that the Full Court was not dealing with the “new” post-Raising the Bar regime. Secondly, [192] appears to carry with it the warning that, if one leaves something out, one does so at one’s own peril.

 

 

GSK’s extended release paracetamol patent 2 Read More »

WTO upholds Australia’s tobacco plain packaging laws

The Dispute Resolution Panel has rejected the complaints by Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Indonesia against Australia’s tobacco plain packaging laws.

Summary (just outlines the provisions contested and rejected). The complainants had:

  1. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 2.2 of the TBT Agreement;
  2. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 2.1 of the TRIPS Agreement in conjunction with Article 6quinquies of the Paris Convention (1967);
  3. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 15.4 of the TRIPS Agreement;
  4. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 16.1 of the TRIPS Agreement;
  5. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 20 of the TRIPS Agreement;
  6. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 2.1 of the TRIPS Agreement in conjunction with Article 10bis of the Paris Convention (1967);
  7. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 22.2(b) of the TRIPS Agreement; and
  8. not demonstrated that the TPP measures are inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under Article 24.3 of the TRIPS Agreement.

Full text via here.

TRIPS Agreement

On to the Appellate Body?

WTO upholds Australia’s tobacco plain packaging laws Read More »