February 2018

Feedspot’s Top 25 Australian Law blogs

Honoured to be included in Feedspot’s Top 25 Australian law blogs and websites for Australian lawyers.

No 1 is Melbourne Uni’s Opinions on High which is a “must read” for following developments in the High Court.

K & L Gates’ IP Law Watch, which includes posts about Australian law as well as the USA, the UK and EU comes in at No. 10.

There are also two competition / consumer law blogs which I should check out.

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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.

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Third Party Blocking Injunctions Review

Third party intermediary injunctions

The government has commenced a review of the regime under s 115A of the Copyright Act 1968 by which copyright owners can seek injunctions ordering ISPs to block access to offshore infringing websites.

The discussion paper raises three questions:

  • How effective and efficient is the mechanism introduced by the Online Infringement Amendment?
  • Is the application process working well for parties and are injunctions operating well, once granted?
  • Are any amendments required to improve the operation of the Online Infringement Amendment?

The discussion paper notes a survey by Kantar Public which reported that the downloading of unlawful content by individuals had fallen by 10% from 2015 to 2017. However, there had been a slight increase for video games. These results were considered consistent with other evidence from Creative Content Australia and Choice. The discussion paper did not that other factors such as increased availability and increasing use of subscription services may also have contributed to the falling levels of infringement.

Submissions are requested by 6 March 2018

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Patenting gene association analyses for cattle in Australia

In a mammoth decision, Beach J has held that Branhaven’s patent application, No 2010202253, entitled “Compositions, methods and systems for inferring bovine traits” “is deficient in terms of:

(a) lack of clarity;

(b) a failure to define the invention; and

(c) related to some questions of construction, lack of utility.”

His Honour, however, rejected attacks on the basis of manner of manufacture, novelty, inventive step and fair basis. Branhaven will be given time (usually 60 days) to consider whether it can amend to overcome the objections.

At 949 paragraphs there is more than a little light reading!

The ABC has an excitable summary here.

Meat & Livestock Australia Limited v Cargill, Inc [2018] FCA 51

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Confidentiality orders in court proceedings

Motorola is suing Hytera for infringement of its patents relating to mobile phone technology.1 As part of the proceeding, Hytera is seeking to invoke a Digital Mobile Radio Essential Properties Cross Licence Agreement. Hytera has obtained an order that information about various terms in the agreement be kept confidential (I.e., suppressed) for 10 years after the proceeding is decided.

Section 37AF of the Federal Court of Australia Act provides the Court with power to suppress or restrict the publication of evidence. In the case of confidential information, such as trade secrets, the party seeking to restrict access to the information must show under s 37AGthat the restriction “is necessary to prevent prejudice to the proper administration of justice”.

Perram J noted that some scepticism might be felt towards the idea that protection of confidential information met the strict standard of necessity. His Honour accepted, however, case law recognised that commercial sensitivity, especially if it were likely that competitors could benefit from information which made public through the Court system, is a circumstance in which the necessity standard could be met.The integrity of the litigious process might be undermined if parties were precluded from advancing relevant information as a result of the harm potentially flowing from publication. In this case, the agreement in question was still on foot. And the information would place Hytera at a competitive disadvantage in future negotiations with third parties. At [15], his Honour explained:

disclosure of the information would be prejudicial to the proper administration of justice because it would tend to ‘destroy or diminish’ (Origin Energy at 148) the value of confidential information with the possible consequence that commercial parties will be more reticent to approach the Court to settle their disputes. I am therefore satisfied that an order under s 37AF in this case is appropriate.

Perram J was not prepared, however, to grant Hytera’s request that the information be kept sealed for 10 years. There was no evidence about the nature and lifespan of the digital mobile radio technology in issue or the life cycle of the telecommunications standards. Having reviewed the agreement and the substance of the information that had been disclosed, Perram J was prepared to order suppression for three years only. His Honour was prepared to reconsider if further evidence were put on.

If you are going to seek suppression orders – i.e, that information be kept confidential, therefore, you will need to lead evidence which establishes (1) that the information is in fact confidential and (2) there is a real risk of prejudice if the confidentiality is not preserved. Another factor which the Court seems to be mentioning more often was that the affidavit evidence was through the solicitor “on information and belief”, rather than from someone knowledgeable within Hytera itself.

Motorola Solutions, Inc. v Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd (No 2) [2018 FCA 17

  1. Apparently, the trial is scheduled to run for 5 weeks. There are also parallel actions in the USA, China and Germany. ?

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