The Patents Act was amended (in relatively controversial circumstances) to include a 12 month grace period (somewhat a la the USA) so that use or publication of the invention in the 12 months before the complete specification was filed could not be relied on to destroy validity: see s 24(1)(a) and reg.s 2.2(1A) and 2.3.
Assume that a complete application for a standard patent was filed on 13 May 2005. Then a complete application for an innovation patent, as a divisional from the standard, was filed on 22 November 2006.
Assume further that the first publication of the invention the subject of both applications was in October 2004.
Which complete application does time run (backwards) from?
If the standard application, the innovation patent will be valid; if not, it will be invalid. If time runs from the date of the complete application for the innovation patent, however, the divisional status of the innovation application will not have all the usually expected effects.
Stone J has found that the relevant application, on the basis of the specific wording of the legislative provisions, is the complete application for the innovation patent:
10 There does not appear to have been any previous judicial consideration of the present question. Both parties submit that, having regard to the context in which they appear, the ordinary and natural meaning of the provisions supports the construction for which they respectively contend. For reasons given below I have concluded that the construction for which the respondent contends is correct, namely, that where the specification filed in respect of a parent application discloses the invention claimed in a divisional application based on the parent, the “complete application” to which cl 2.2(1A) refers is the divisional application. Consequently I would answer the question for determination as follows:
For the purpose of determining the validity of the Australian Innovation Patent No 2006100978 (Innovation Patent), and on the facts stated in the orders made by Bennett J on 11 December 2007, “the filing date of the complete application” within the meaning of reg 2.2(1A) of the Patents Regulations 1991 (Cth) is the filing date of the complete application for the Innovation Patent on 22 November 2006.
28 I reject the applicant’s argument that the respondent’s construction creates an anomaly by providing the innovation patent with the benefits of divisional status whilst depriving it of the grace period benefits otherwise accruing to that status. As the respondent correctly submits, the consequence of its view is that the grace period simply runs from a later date, which may or may not extend past the priority date based on the filing of the parent application. This is said to reflect:
… a decision not to allow divisional applications to benefit more than they already do from the earlier priority date in circumstances where the divisional application is filed more than a year after the parent application.
Be very, very very careful if you have to rely on the grace period!
Mont Adventure Equipment Pty Limited v Phoenix Leisure Group Pty Limited [2008] FCA 1476.
