intellectual property arrangements

IP Laws Amendment ( Productivity Commission Response Pt 1 etc) Bill 2018

On May 10, the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2018 was referred to the Senate’s Economics Legislation Committee.

You may recall that, amongst other things, the Bill has another go at parallel imports and trade marks (which also entails repealing s 198A of the Copyright Act 1968), reduces the period before registered trade marks can be attacked for non-use, permits non-PBR-protected varieties to be declared as essentially derived varieties and a host of other reforms (Sch. 2 has 21 Parts)

The Senate committee is required to report on the bill by 22 June 2018.

If you are an agricultural organisation, medical research industry, an IP peak body (who is not going to INTA) or somehow at a loose end, you need to get your skates on as submissions must be made by 1 June 2018.

IP Laws Amendment ( Productivity Commission Response Pt 1 etc) Bill 2018 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 »