IP generally

IP Australia and Indigenous Knowledge – consultations

In September 2020, IP Australia published its work plan to make provision for the better protection of Indigenous Knowledge in Australia’s Intellectual Property System.

Now it has released a consultation paper on four topics from that work plan it wishes to advance.

As summarised in the Introduction, the consultation paper raises four topics:

  1. Establishing an Indigenous Advisory Panel – providing a formalised Indigenous voice to IP Australia.
  2. Measures for trade mark or designs using Indigenous Knowledge – changes to processes to ensure IK owners benefit from, or have consented to, the use of their IK as the basis for rights.
  3. New requirements to declare the source of Indigenous Knowledge used in new innovations – make it easier to determine if IK has been used in a patent or plant breeder’s right, and encourage conversations about access and benefit sharing.
  4. Labelling to promote authentic Indigenous Products – exploring interest in labelling schemes that distinguish authentic Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander goods.

Topic 2, relating to trade marks and designs, notes that IP Australia may currently reject an application if the application uses “IK” which is secret or sacred; the name of a group or a nation where there is no connection to that group or nation or uses a an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander word which should be available for other business to use.

Noting the limitations in that range, the consultation paper seeks input on a range of issues including:

(a) whether people would have concerns providing a statutory declaration etc. as evidence to support an objection to an application;

(b) whether IP Australia should ask applicants whether they have consent to use the “IK”;

(c) the introduction of a check to assess whether an application would cause cultural offence to a community or communities;

(d) whether IP Australia should assess whether the the application involves a use of “IK” in a way which falsely suggests a connection to an Indigenous person, community or nation.

Other questions relate to tools for better identifying applications which involve the use of “IK”.

Topic 3 raises questions about whether patent applicants should be required to declare the source of (1) genetic resources and/or (2) traditional knowledge included in their applications or on which an application is based.

Additional questions relate to how such requirements would be implemented, enforced and, if not complied with, penalised.

The Overview page states that consultations close on 24 May 2021.

IP Australia and Indigenous Knowledge – consultations Read More »

Repeal of s 51(3)

The bill repealing (amongst other things) s 51(3) of the Competition and Consumer Act did get passed and has received royal assent.

The repeal takes effect on 13 September 2019.

So, if you thought you were relying on s 51(3)’s protection, you have a bit less than 6 months to get your house in order.

Your licences and assignments of IP rights probably will not get you into trouble for the most part unless you have market power. But that is not exactly a hard and fast rule so you should discuss your arrangements with your lawyers ASAP.

As discussed in this post, one area of potentially significant concern is where the IP holder has its own retail outlets and also licenses other retail outlets – e.g. not uncommon for franchisors who have their own outlets and franchisees. There is a concern that may give rise to criminal cartel conduct.

If you want to know about the prohibitions on cartel conduct, Ian Wylie has published a paper “Cartel conduct or Permissible Joint Venture?

On Tuesday, the ACCC also announced it hopes to publish draft guidelines by “mid-2019” and finalise them before 13 September. Amongst other things, these proposed guidelines will outline:

how the ACCC proposes to investigate and enforce Part IV in relation to conduct involving intellectual property rights. They will also provide hypothetical examples to illustrate conduct that the ACCC considers is likely or unlikely to contravene Part IV.

Repeal of s 51(3) Read More »

Enforcing foreign judgments – consultations

The Commonwealth government is participating in negotiations for a new Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. Now it is seeking public input on a range of outstanding issues.

One of the general issues on which input is sought is the extent to which and the nature of problems experienced in trying to enforce a judgment in a foreign country.

Intellectual property issues are high on the list of matters being debated. Chapter 5 of the consultation paper is directed to intellectual property rights’ issues.

The issues include whether or not intellectual property rights should even be included in the judgments covered by the Convention. So draft article 2(m) proposes to exclude judgments about intellectual property rights from the Convention altogether; alternatively, articles 5 and 6 proceed on the basis that intellectual property rights are included. Which approach should it be?

If included, the basic idea is that a judgment on subsistence, ownership or infringement of an intellectual property right made by a Court in the country which granted the right could be enforceable under the proposed Convention to the extent that the judgment dealt with the subsistence, ownership and infringement of the right in that country.

It is proposed to treat judgments about the subsistence, ownership and infringement of registered rights granted by the country where the judgment is made as falling exclusively under the Convention. Judgments about unregistered rights, such as copyright and unregistered designs, would not be exclusive.

According to the consultation paper, one consequence of this arrangement would be that judgments involving “multi-state IP infringements” of registered rights will be enforceable under the Convention only to the extent that the judgment relates to infringements in the country/jurisdiction issuing the judgment.

No doubt for sound philosophical rationalising, trade secrets do not count as intellectual property rights under the draft Convention. Practically speaking from a business’ perspective, however, one might wonder why confidential information should be treated differently to unregistered “rights”.

Another area of issues raised in the consultation paper is the extent to which awards of damages, especially additional or exemplary or otherwise punitive damages, should be capable of enforcement under the Convention.

As the next (and possibly final) meeting of the commission preparing the draft for a Treaty conference is on 24 – 29 May 2018, the deadline for submissions is COB 27 April 2018.

Hague Conference Judgments Project: Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments

Enforcing foreign judgments – consultations Read More »

Productivity Commission intellectual property arrangements

Part 1 of my article on the Productivity Commission’s Final Report on Intellectual Property Arrangements has been belatedly published in the Australian Intellectual Property Law Bulletin: (2018) Vol. 30 No. 10 p. 210.

Subscription only, I’m afraid.

This part looks at the Productivity Commission’s approach and treatment of patents. Part 2 will deal with copyright, designs and other issues.

This issue of AIPLB also includes a paper by Richard Hamer and Lev Gutkin on patents law in 2016 and Marina Olsen’s review of the Productivity Commission’s recommendations on designs.

Between writing the paper and its publication, the Government has published its response to the Productivity Commission’s report. Despite the Raising the Bar reforms to inventive step, that response included acceptance of the recommendation to change the inventive step requirement yet again. The Government has since published several discussion papers on ways to “reform” inventive step and the requirement for disclosure of the technical advance, a statement of objects and Crown use.

Productivity Commission intellectual property arrangements Read More »

AIPPI Sydney 2017 – Day 3: patents, copyright and …

Some more reports from the AIPPI Congress 2017 in Sydney – Day 3:

  1. My post on the panel discussing the issues patenting medical devices (apparatus or apparatus + drug) including significant changes in the EU next year;
  2. Clare Cunliffe reporting on the panel discussing issues arising when an innovator is seeking a final injunction against another innovator (rather than a generic); and
  3. James Elmore’s report on the Business of IP – IP venturing.
  4. Clare also reports on intermediary liability for copyright infringement.
  5. Finally, James reports on the panel on whether not identification of the technical problem solved by the patent is required in the USA, the EPO, China and Japan.

AIPPI Sydney 2017 – Day 3: patents, copyright and … Read More »

Government response to Productivity Commission IP report

The Government has published its response to the Productivity Commission’s Intellectual Property Arrangements – Final Report.

Further comment will have to await. In the meantime, the media release notes:

A key priority will be to align Australian inventive step law with international best practice to ensure that the necessary protections are available to deserving inventions. The Government has also accepted the Productivity Commission’s recommendation to phase out the Innovation Patent System.

and, in not accepting the proposal to adopt a general “fair use” defence to copyright:

It is important copyright reform is considered in a holistic context rather than focused on individual issues. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders over the next 12 months to develop effective options for copyright reform.

The Australia Copyright Council is very pleased.

There will also be a new IP Policy Group (within government) to, er, monitor IP policy!

According to the Government’s Media Release, the Government is still considering the merits of a number of other proposals and “will work on these further”.

Australian Government Response to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Intellectual Property Arrangements (pdf)

Media release 25 August 2017

Government response to Productivity Commission IP report Read More »

100 blogs about IP

100 blogs about IP Read More »

Global Innovation Index 2017

INSEAD, Cornell University and WIPO have published the 10th edition of Global Innovation Index for 2017.

The Global Innovation Index attempts to assess the innovation performance of some 127 countries across a wide range of factors, made up of some 81 “pillars”.

Australia comes in at #23, down 4 places from last year. While it scored quite strongly on innovation inputs, coming in at #12, its ranking for innovation outputs – what innovations it produces – came in at only #30. And, in terms of innovation efficiency – the ratio of the innovation output score over the innovation input score, coming in at #76.[1]

Much of the narrative of the report is directed to exploring and promoting innovation in agriculture given the growing global population and the threat to food security posed by climate change.

The introductory overview chapter reports that there are indications of a pick-up of global economic activity. However, investment and productivity increases are still at historic lows. It also reports concerns around faltering economic integration; trade growth being around 2.5% in 2013 – 2014, but falling to 1.5% in 2016.

R & D growth is still lower than before 2011. In addition to reduced public R & D, growth in business R & D has been decreasing from 6% in 2013 to about 4.5% in 2015. The authors of the report call therefore for:

policy actions that foster human capital, research and development (R&D), and other innovation inputs and outputs, as captured by the GII, are now required. Indeed, avail-able economic evidence shows that an increase in R&D can effectively translate into an increase of GDP in the medium and longer term.

The question for Australia may be whether the Productivity Commission’s proposals meet those prescriptions?

Global Innovation Index


  1. The rankings are not strictly comparable as there have been adjustments and refinements to the framework and “technical factors” over the years and 4 countries included in 2016 dropped out while 3 new countries were introduced.  ?

Global Innovation Index 2017 Read More »

Annual IP Report 2017

IP Australia has published its Australian Intellectual Property Report 2017.

Some key points:

  • there were 28,394 applications for standard patents filed in 2016, a one per cent decline from 2015. At the other end, 23,734 patents were granted last year, an increase of 3 per cent from 2015;
  • there were 2,322 innovation patent applications in 2016 up by 27% from 2015;
  • there were 71,344 trade mark applications in 2016, down by 3 per cent from 2015 – Madrid filings decreased by 14 per cent;
  • there were 7,202 design applications filed in 2016, a 3 per cent increase over 2015;
  • in 2016, IP Australia registered 6,644 designs and certified 978;
  • the number of PBR applications increased by a whopping 8 per cent: from 359 to 387. IP Australia registered 111 PBRs.

IP Australia has completed a draft of its cost-benefit analysis for Australia joining the Hague Agreement and “will look to share the draft and seek feedback on the research later in 2017”.

There is also a long(-sh) chapter challenging the view that there is an Australian crisis in university-business collaboration. The chapter includes convoluted node diagrams showing the types of collaboration by institution and concludes that, rather than being at the bottom of the OECD rankings, we are merely “middle of the road”; in about 13th place.

With a view to geographical indications, IP Australia and Melbourne University have been building a world-first database linking Australian registered trade marks to a global atlas of place names. Apparently, this database will be released later this year.

On the research front, IP Australia has also released the 2017 edition of “IPGOD”. This year IP Australia should also release a database of pharma substances subject to patent term extensions. IP Australia has also made available the literature review on grace periods it commissioned from the University of California, Davis here (pdf). There is also a paper (pdf) on how grace periods affect innovation.

Download the report from here.

Minister’s press release here.

Annual IP Report 2017 Read More »

Exposure draft not stillborn

Back in the dying days of 2016, IP Australia landed us with the early Christmas present of an exposure draft of a proposed Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 201? and associated regulations and explanatory materials.

After everyone (well, 17 different organisations) ran around getting in their comments so that IP Australia had something to do after they came back from the holidays …

… IP Australia has announced that the bill itself is still coming, but will be delayed until the Government has finalised its response to the Productivity Commission’s Final Report on Intellectual Property Arrangements.

IP Australia explains:

This is because if any legislative amendments are required as a result of the Government’s response, two intellectual property Bills might be in Parliament at the same time, leading to great complexity and uncertainty.

In the meantime, you could spend World IP Day (or what’s left of it) reviewing the sterling efforts of those brave souls who responded to the call for comments.

Exposure draft not stillborn Read More »