Nicholas J has ruled that ToolGen’s application for a patent, AU 2013335451, for “what is now a well-known gene editing system known as the CRISPR/Cas9 system” for editing target DNZ sequences in eukaryotic cells. His Honour has allowed ToolGen until 11 August 2023 to bring any application for leave to amend pursuant to s 105(1A).
As the complete specification was filed after 15 April 2013, the Patents Act in the form amended by the Raising the Bar Act applied.
The matter came before his Honour on ToolGen’s “appeal” from an opposition in which the Commissioner’s delegate found that all but one of the claims should be refused but allowed ToolGen 2 months to amend.
At [13], Nicholas J summarised his Honour’s findings:
For the reasons that follow I have concluded:
(a) None of the claims are entitled to priority based on P1 (s 43(2A)).
(b) All of the claims lack novelty or do not involve an inventive step (s 18(1)(b)).
(c) The complete specification does not provide an enabling disclosure of the invention (s 40(2)(a)).
(d) The claims are not supported by matter disclosed in the specification (s 40(3)).
(e) Claim 19 lacks clarity (s 40(3)).
More detailed consideration will have to wait for another day.
In finding (2:1) that the primary judge had wrongly held that most of the claims in Damorgold’s patent were invalid because they lacked novelty, the Full Court confirmed that the novelty test under the 1990 Act is stricter than the old law.[1]
Damorgold’s patent relates to a mechanism for raising and lowering a blind. As characterised by Bennett J at [6], claim 1 was a combination of some 27 integers.
The Full Court upheld the primary judge’s finding that a Mr Horner had imported into Australia and shown to some potential customers a product which embodied all the integers in the relevant claims of Damorgold’s patent notwithstanding the imperfections in the evidence.
Although Mr Horner had been showing the product to potential customers to solicit sales, the evidence was that he did not in fact sell any. Nor did he leave any samples with anyone.
Mr Horner only showed the product to his potential customers in its assembled form. It was not possible, however, to tell how the product worked in its assembled form. To ascertain the internal componentry and how all the parts worked together, it was necessary to dissassemble it – to pull the product apart. And that was never done.
Section 7(1)(a) in the form applicable [2] provided that a claim in a patent was taken to be novel unless it was shown not to be novel in light of prior art information made publicly available in a single document or through doing a single act.[3]
The trial judge considered that a potential customer could have asked to see how the product worked and, if they had done so, Mr Horner would have shown them or allowed them to disassemble it; disassembly (and re-assembly) would have been easy. Therefore, his Honour held the novelty destroying information was made publicly available.
On appeal, Bennett J and Yates J held that the requirement in 7(1)(a) that the information be made publicly available meant the question was what information did the prior use communicate (or make available) to the public. As the demonstrations to the public in the assembled form did not disclose the internal workings of the product, the information communicated to the public did not disclose all the integers of any claim. Therefore, the attack on novelty failed.
Bennett J pointed out at [11] that different consequences flowed from whether the prior art relied on was a document or an act:
The question is whether an act can be identified that did in fact make the information being the integers of the invention publicly available. This is not the same requirement for anticipation by prior publication, which is satisfied if the information is in a document which is publicly available. (emphasis supplied)
In his opinion concurring with Bennett J, Yates J was at pains to stress that nothing he said should be taken as dealing with the situation where there had in fact been a sale or a sample had been given to and retained bya potential customer.
In dissent, Jessup J agreed with the primary judge that the appropriate question was what information would have been conveyed by the use.[4]
As I was junior counsel for the appellant, this post will aim just to identify the court’s ruling. ?
The applicable prior art base was the form before the amendments made by the Patents Amendment Act 2001 so acts of prior use had to be done in Australia. ?
The Full Court has dismissed both Bluescope’s appeal and Gram’s cross-appeal from the ruling that Bluescope infringed Gram’s registered design for the Smartascreen fencing panel.
This is an “old Act” case.[1] At first instance, Jacobson J held that Bluescope’s product was an obvious imitation of Gram’s registered design. However, his Honour rejected the allegation that it was also a fraudulent imitation.
Bluescope (then Lysaghts, part of BHP) had long been the market leader for fencing made from metal sheeting. There was a problem, however: one side of the fence was less desirable because the posts and rails supporting the cladding were visible. Gram came up with its Gramline solution which was symmetrical, looking the same from both sides. It quickly usurped Bluescope’s position as the market leader. Bluescope then spent (roughly) 6 years trying to come up with a competing design. In the course of doing so, it rejected a number of alternatives in favour of one that so closely resembled Gram’s product that the two could be stacked one on top of the other.
AU 121344
Smartascreen
Construction of the design
Besanko and Middleton JJ endorsed the trial judge’s principles for construing the design, summarising them at [28]:
(a) a design is the mental picture of a shape, configuration, pattern or ornamentation of the article to which it is to be applied;
(b) construction is a question of fact for the Court to determine by the eye alone;
(c) expert evidence may be led to assist the Court;
(d) the Court is to apply an ‘instructed eye’ to the design – that is the Court must be made aware of the characteristics of the article to which the design is applied, and the manner in which such articles would normally be found in trade, commerce and in use; and
(e) however, considerations of utility have no relevance to the proper construction of a design.
In applying those principles, the trial judge found
“the primary feature was the sawtooth pattern consisting of six identical repeating pans, oriented vertically. The sawtooth pattern was the product of the unique proportions of the wavelength, amplitude and angles of each sawtooth module”.
It was this combination of features, which contributed to the symmetricality of the product, that ultimately conferred the design with novelty[2] and which were taken by Bluescope, leading to the finding of obvious imitation.[3] Three points of note on these parts of the case.
First, at [51] Besanko and Middleton JJ rejected Bluescope’s challenge to the trial judge’s reliance on Gram’s design being viewed vertically as an in-fill sheet between posts so that the saw-tooth ran top to bottom:
While considerations of utility are not relevant, designs cannot be construed without context. It is often the case that features of the article to which the design applies, will serve both visual and functional purposes. Where this is the case, the implication of BlueScope’s submission is that the feature’s appearance and utility must be divorced. However, a design without context is a meaningless drawing. As Lockhart J observed in Dart Industries 15 IPR 403 at 408, the design is ‘the mental picture of the shape, configuration, pattern, or ornament of the article to which it has been applied’ (emphasis added). It is inescapable that the Design is for sheet metal fencing and the construction of the Design must reflect this.[4]
That is, because the design was for a sheet metal fencing panel which “worked” in one way, it should be interpreted in the way (presumably) those who would use it for that would understand it.
Secondly, the trial judge had not impermissibly referred to the fact that the Bluescope product could be “nested” with the Gram product (embodying the design). But, it was not the fact of “nestability” as such that was important. Rather, it was relevant because it was helpful in forming a view about the similarity of the sawtooth profile. Besanko and Middleton JJ explained at [89]:
the nesting qualities are instructive. As has been discussed at length, the combination of amplitudes, wavelengths and angles create the sawtooth profile. For the GramLine and Smartascreen sheets to nest, albeit imperfectly, they must by logical extension, have similar amplitudes, wavelengths and angles. This is clearly helpful in deciding if Smartascreen is an obvious imitation of GramLine, and it was entirely open for the primary judge to be assisted by the nesting properties of the two articles. It is further relevant because as noted above, an obvious imitation is not one which is the same as the design, but one that is an imitation apparent to the eye notwithstanding slight differences.
Care definitely needs to be taken with this as the physical embodiment of the registered design is not always the same as the design and the comparison must be between the accused product and the registered design. It is important to note, therefore, that the Full Court treated this as confirming or reinforcing the view based on comparison of the appearance of the infringing article to the registered design.
Thirdly, the Full Court considered the trial judge had impermissibly taken into account Bluescope’s commercial objectives – to introduce a product to compete with the Gramline product – in deciding whether or not the Smartascreen was an obvious imitation. With respect that must be right as the test of obvious imitation is an objective test based on visual resemblance. Yates J, however, was prepared to accept at [198] to [201] evidence such as that Bluescope was attracted to the design because “it had a similar appearance to the GramLine sawtooth profile and would gain ready market acceptance” as a kind of expert evidence about the similarity of Bluescope’s product to Gram’s design.
Fraudulent imitation
In Polyaire, the High Court rejected the interpretation of fraudulent imitation which had required the alleged infringer to have attempted to disguise its copying. Instead, the High Court had said at [17]:
the application of a “fraudulent imitation” requires that the application of the design be with knowledge of the existence of the registration and of the absence of consent to its use, or with reason to suspect those matters, and that the use of the design produces what is an “imitation” within the meaning of par (a). This, to apply the general principle recently exemplified in Macleod v The Queen, is the knowledge, belief or intent which renders the conduct fraudulent.
At [36], the High Court approved Lehane J’s formulation of the test for fraudulent imitation in the following terms:
[T]he essential questions are, first, whether the allegedly infringing design is based on or derived from the registered design and, then, whether the differences are so substantial that the result is not to be described as an imitation. ….
In this case, the trial judge considered that fraudulent imitation required a finding that the infringing product was deliberately based on the registered design. The Besanko and Middleton JJ endorsed that test at [115]:
In our opinion, it must be shown that there was deliberate, in the sense of conscious, copying for there to be fraudulent imitation. If imitation imports the notion of making use of the registered design, there must be at least a conscious use of the registered design before it could be concluded there was fraudulent imitation.
The trial judge had found that:
Bluescope knew the Gramline design was registered;
Bluescope knew that Gram had achieved runaway commercial success with its product;
Bluescope was trying to design a “Gram lookalike”;
Bluescope had come up with a number of different symmetrical designs to Gram’s design, but rejected those in favour of the Smartascreen design; and
Bluescope had adopted a panel size of 762mm which was the same as Gram’s but different to the standard 820mm panel prevailing in the industry at the time.
His Honour was also “sceptical” of Bluescope’s claim that the resemblance to Gram’s design was coincidental. Gram argued that, given these findings, what other conclusion could there be but deliberate copying.
The Full Court upheld the trial judge’s refusal to find the Smartascreen was deliberately based on the Gramline design. Two factors seem to have played an important role here.
First, the Full Court accepted at [118] that an allegation of fraudulent imitation was a serious matter and the level of proofs needed to reflect the gravity of that.
Secondly, the evidence showed that the Bluescope employees who came up with the final design from 2000 onwards were influenced by, or at least referred to, design work done by a Mr Field in 1996.
Mr Field did not give evidence so it was not clear on the evidence what influences or references he made use of. Now, in many cases, the unexplained failure of a key player in the design process to give evidence (especially when there are inferences (at least) suggestive of copying available) might be sufficient to give rise to a Jones v Dunkel that the witness could not say anything helpful to the defendant’s case. Here, however, Mr Field’s absence was explained: he was old and in very poor health. His design work had taken place in 1996 very early in the picture. Moreover, Bluescope’s product had been introduced in 2002. Gram had of course known about it pretty much straightaway, but had delayed until 2010 before taking action. One may speculate, therefore, that the Court was not willing to allow Gram the benefit of negative inferences when its own delay had contributed to the witness being unavailable.
Given the transitional provisions, there are potentially almost 6 more years for designs for designs under the old Act to still be in force. Design applications that were pending on 17 June 2004, when the 2003 Act came into force, continue to be governed by the old Act’s provisions for validity and infringement unless they were “converted” to “new” Act designs. ?
Full Court at [63], [71] – [72] (Besanko and Middleton JJ), [163] – [181] (Yates J). ?
Full Court at [89] – [93], with a useful summary of the key principles at [82] (Besanko and Middleton JJ). There were differences between the Smartascreen’s appearance and the registered design, but these were treated as insubstantial: [] (Besanko and Middleton JJ) and [188]ff (Yates J). ?
The Rosuvastatin case is that rare beast – a decision of a 5 member Full Bench of the Federal Court. It canvases many issues and, no doubt, we shall be picking over it for years to come. Susan Gatford, at the Victorian Bar, has kindly provided a guest post on the section 40 issues. Take it way Sue:
The judgment in AstraZeneca AB v Apotex Pty Ltd[2014] FCAFC 99 is an authoritative statement by a Full Court of the Federal Court of current patent law in Australia on novelty, obviousness, fair basis and indirect infringement. Further, neither the parties nor the Full Court at [37] demurred from the primary judge’s summary of the relevant authorities as to what constitutes common general knowledge and the attributes of the hypothetical skilled addressee. Likewise, neither the parties nor the Full Court at [90] disagreed with the primary judge’s exposition of the principles governing the construction of the claims and body of a specification of a patent.
The Full Court was principally constituted with five justices so as to address issues in regard to obviousness[1]. But the decisions at first instance and on appeal, taken together, also provide a “go to” exposition of most of the legal issues that commonly arise in Australian patent cases.
The Court’s views on the different validity grounds and on indirect infringement each warrant separate commentary and analysis. This article considers one of the construction issues, the decision as to fair basis and the interplay between construction and fair basis.
Background
Statins are a group of drugs that reduce the levels of cholesterol in the blood. Rosuvastatin (marketed in Australia as CRESTOR) is a very successful statin. No patent was ever filed in Australia for the rosuvastatin chemical compound. But AstraZeneca (Az) owns a number of secondary Australian patents relating to rosuvastatin. Two such patents are the subject of the appeal decision. One (the low dose patent) is for the administration of a particular dose or dosage range of rosuvastatin for the treatment of excess cholesterol in the blood stream. The other (the cation patent) is for a pharmaceutical composition (combination) of rosuvastatin mixed with certain inorganic salts.
The Full Federal Court’s decision affirms, although with some differences of reasoning and grounds, Apotex’s victory last year before Justice Jagot, in which it obtained orders revoking both patents.
The outcome of the appeal
The low dose patent was held:
to have named the wrong inventor (with a discussion of the current and former entitlement provisions of the Patents Act);
to be obvious (with a discussion of the starting point at which obviousness is to be considered and the impact of section 7 of the Patents Act); and
not to have been infringed (with a discussion of section 117 of the Patents Act)
However, reversing the decision of the primary judge, the Full Court held that the low dose patent was novel despite the existence of prior publications disclosing both rosuvastatin and a dosage range that covered the dosage range the subject of the claims.
The cation patent was held:
to have impermissibly claimed too early a priority date;
to have been anticipated (not novel);
to be obvious; and
not to be fairly based on the specification (despite the presence of claim 1 as a consistory clause within the body of the specification).
The five judges agreed with each other on all issues. Justices Besanko, Foster, Nicholas and Yates wrote a joint judgment which dealt with all issues except obviousness. Justice Jessup wrote a separate judgment on obviousness with which the rest of the Court agreed.
Patent construction and section 40 issues in relation to the cation patent.
The cation patent was for rosuvastatin mixed with certain multivalent cation inorganic salts. The salts were not therapeutic – their role was said to be simply to stabilize the rosuvastatin and prevent it from degrading. The patent specification described rosuvastatin and various salts being mixed together into a tablet which was then coated.
There was a disagreement between the parties as to the meaning of the words “pharmaceutical composition” in claim 1 of the cation patent. Apotex submitted that in the context of the cation patent “pharmaceutical composition” referred only to the rosuvastatin-salt mixture, and did not include the tablet coating. This was because the proposed Apotex product did not have a rosuvastatin-salt mixture – in its tablet the salt was placed into the coating, not mixed with the rosuvastatin.
Az, in order to maintain its infringement case, argued that the words “pharmaceutical composition” in claim 1 meant the whole tablet i.e. the means by which rosuvastatin is administered or delivered to the patient, whatever form that takes. The primary judge agreed with Az, as did the Full Court.
But, Apotex said, if this is what claim 1 means then it is not fairly based on the specification, as there is no real and reasonably clear disclosure in the specification of a pharmaceutical composition in which the relevant inorganic salt is contained solely within the coating of the pharmaceutical composition and not mixed with the active ingredient, being rosuvastatin. They noted that every disclosure in the cation patent of the use of a relevant salt, including in each of the examples, involved the salt being mixed or blended with rosuvastatin. They also noted that the only theory advanced in the specification to explain how the multivalent cation salt improved the stability of rosuvastatin was that it stabilised its chemical structure, which the experts’ evidence confirmed required “intimate mixing”.
Az did not dispute this evidence but submitted that the fact that claim 1 was repeated in the body of the specification as a consistory clause was itself sufficient for fair basis, relying on statements in Lockwood Security Products Pty Limited v Doric Products Pty Limited (2004) 217 CLR 274 (Doric No 1) at [38] and [91] to [93]. The primary judge had agreed with that submission.
The Full Court, however, disagreed. It said at [421]
“The question that must be addressed is whether there is a real and reasonably clear disclosure in the specification of an invention in which there might be no mixture of the active ingredient and inorganic salt. In our opinion, the specification, when read as a whole, does not make any such disclosure even in the most general sense.”
In other words, the claim was for a composition which contained three things – rosuvastatin, salt and a coating. The claim did not require the salt and the rosuvastatin to be mixed, so the salt could either be with the rosuvastatin or in the coating. In the invention disclosed in the specification, though, the salt and the rosuvastatin were always mixed. The possibility of the salt not being mixed with the rosuvastatin was not contemplated and not disclosed.
Section 40(3) of the Patents Act as applied to this patent (i.e. as it stood before the 2013 amendments to the Patents Act) requires that “the claim or claims must be … fairly based on the matter disclosed in the specification”.
The Court’s finding of lack of fair basis refocuses attention on the construction of claim 1 contended for by Apotex. But the Court was not prepared, in light of the authorities, to read claim 1 as requiring the salt and the rosuvastatin to be mixed, as it considered that to do so would be to draw an impermissible gloss from the specification.
The Court was, however, prepared to use section 40 to strike down what it evidently regarded as a claim that was too widely drawn. Whether the judgment will result in an increase in the number of successful challenges based on section 40 grounds remains to be seen.
Last week, the US Supreme Court unanimously rejected the patentability of Prometheus’ “diagnostic”, characterising it as an impermissible attempt to patent a law of nature.
Claim 1 of the Patent was:
A method of optimizing therapeutic efficacy for treatment of an immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorder, comprising:
“(a) administering a drug providing 6-thioguanine to a subject having said immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorder; and
“(b) determining the level of 6-thioguanine in said subject having said immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorder,
“wherein the level of 6-thioguanine less than about 230 pmol per 8×108 red blood cells indicates a need to increase the amount of said drug subsequently admin istered to said subject and
“wherein the level of 6-thioguanine greater than about 400 pmol per 8×108 red blood cells indicates a need to decrease the amount of said drug subsequently ad ministered to said subject.”
The Supreme Court characterised that part of the claims dealing with the relationship between concentrations of certain metabolites in the blood with the effectiveness of particular dosages as a law of nature, which was unpatentable. The additional features did not overcome that exclusion as they were in effect already well-known and practised. In his Honour’s overview, Breyer J explained the rationale:
[The cases] warn us against up holding patents that claim processes that too broadly preempt the use of a natural law. Morse, supra, at 112– 120; Benson, supra, at 71–72. And they insist that a process that focuses upon the use of a natural law also contain other elements or a combination of elements, sometimes referred to as an “inventive concept,” sufficient to ensure that the patent in practice amounts to signifi cantly more than a patent upon the natural law itself. ….
We find that the process claims at issue here do not satisfy these conditions. In particular, the steps in the claimed processes (apart from the natural laws them selves) involve well-understood, routine, conventional activity previously engaged in by researchers in the field. At the same time, upholding the patents would risk dis proportionately tying up the use of the underlying nat- ural laws, inhibiting their use in the making of further discoveries.
The Supreme Court subsequently remitted the Myriad “gene patent” case to the Federal Circuit and Patently-O thinks their patent is going down too.
Our law is in many respects rather different. Section 18(2) of the Patents Act contains an exclusion from patentability only for human beings and the processes for their generation. Under s 18(1) and (1A), however, a patentable invention must be a “manner of manufacture within the meaning of s 6 of the Statute of Monopolies”.
In the ‘watershed’ NRDC case, the High Court confirmed that a ‘mere’ discovery was not a manner of manufacture, but an application of a discovery in a field of economic endeavour would be. A ‘mere’ discovery being “some piece of abstract information without any suggestion of a practical application of it to a useful end” at [8].
On this approach, Prometheus’ patent appears to have moved beyond the ‘mere discovery’ stage. The question might be, therefore, whether the additional integers were obvious or, may be, we have moved into Microcell territory: nothing but “nothing but a claim for a new use of an old substance” (see NRDC at [7].
A role for that approach was preserved (reinstated?) under the 1990 Act by the High Court in Phillips v Mirabella. Now, given the overlap between the Mirabella court’s analysis and the statutory requirements for novelty and inventive step (or an innovative step), that raises a whole set of issues. First, there is a question whether Mirabella would be decided the same way given the High Court seemed to have cut the legs out from under it in Advanced Building Systems – although, as the Full Federal Court pointed out in BMS v Faulding, Advanced Buidling Systems was decided under the 1952 Act and distinguished Mirabella on the grounds that the 2 Acts were different.
In trying to make sense of that, the Full Court went on to find that the “lack of newness” must be apparent on the face of the specification. As that appears to depend on the text of the specification, the approach taken by the US Supreme Court might not be open: the Faulding court found the dosage type regime a manner of manufacture although, in the end, it failed the novelty test.
In Arrow v Merck, Gyles J struck down a dosage regime on the grounds that it lacked subject matter. On appeal, the Full Court upheld invalidity, but only on grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step. Subsequently, Gyles J also accepted that the lack of subject mater ground could not be made out if it was necessary to resort to extrinsic evidence.
I guess we’ll see where the Myriad litigation in Australia takes us in due course.
Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs., Inc. (Supreme Court 2012) (pdf)
RPL applied for an innovation patent of a method entitled ‘Method and System for Automated Collection of Evidence of Skills and Knowledge’.
The applied for innovation relates to a method for people to obtain recognition for their prior learning. Apparently, there are some 35,000 qualifications and 34,000 units in the vocational educational and training sector in Australia. Hence it can be difficult for people to identify a particular qualification which they have qualified for as there is no single point of access to the system. The applied for innovation claimed methods for using technology, particularly the internet, to automate the process of identifying relevant criteria and applying for the relevant recognition.
Claim 1 claimed:
1. A method of gathering evidence relevant to an assessment of an individual’s competency relative to a recognised qualification standard, including the steps of:
a computer retrieving via the Internet from a remotely-located server a plurality of assessable criteria associated with the recognised qualification standard, said criteria including one or more elements of competency, each of which is associated with one or more performance criteria;
the computer processing the plurality of assessable criteria to generate automatically a corresponding plurality of questions relating to the competency of an individual to satisfy each of the elements of competency and performance criteria associated with the recognised qualification standard;
an assessment server presenting the automatically-generated questions via the Internet to a computer of an individual requiring assessment; and
receiving from the individual via said individual’s computer a series of responses to the automatically generated questions, the responses including evidence of the individual’s skills, knowledge and/or experience in relation to each of the elements of competency and performance criteria,
wherein at least one said response includes the individual specifying one or more files stored on the individual’s computer, which are transferred to the assessment server.
Myall opposed alleging lack of novelty based on prior use. The applicant didn’t even need to file evidence to defend this allegation which failed on the evidence submitted by the opponent.
However, it appears that the delegate hearing the opposition raised the objection that the innovation claimed was not a manner of manufacture (see [62]).
The delegate noted (at [45]) that the Full Federal Court’s decision in Grant had qualified NRDC so that a manner of manufacture required
‘an artificial state of affairs, in the sense of a concrete, tangible, physical, or observable effect’
and
A physical effect in the sense of a concrete effect or phenomenon or manifestation or transformation is required.
This had been further explained by the Deputy Commissioner in Invention Pathways:
I do not take [Grant] to suggest that patentability is merely determined on the presence of a physical effect. Rather it clearly must be an effect of such substance or quality that the method considered as a whole is “proper subject of letters patent according to the principles which have been developed for the application of s. 6 of the Statute of Monopolies”.
Accordingly, the Deputy Commissioner considered:
… the “concrete effect or phenomenon or manifestation or transformation” referred to must be one that is significant both in that it is concrete but also that it is central to the purpose or operation of the claimed process or otherwise arises from the combination of steps of the method in a substantial way. Consequently while the step of building a house involves a concrete physical effect it is peripheral to the method of acquiring a house and indeed could hardly be said to characterise the subject matter of the method such that it is considered an artificially created state of affairs. I consider the same to apply to a business scheme implemented in some part by computer and do not believe the patentability of such a method can arise solely from the fact that, in a general sense, it is implemented in or with the assistance of a computer or utilises some part a computer or other physical device in a incidental way.
In this case, the delegate considered at [54]:
54. It is clear that the claim relates to gathering information where the internet is used for transmitting and receiving data, and a computer is used for data retrieval, processing, presentation and storage of information in a well known manner. The process of automatically generating questions based on assessable criteria, as stated in the description, includes applying a question template into which the text of the relevant assessable criteria may be merged. In a simple form, a question may be generated from the criteria by prepending the text such as ‘How can you show evidence that’.
and so found at [55]:
55. The claimed invention defines a method for gathering information where the data retrieval, processing and storage of information appear to have no physical effect other than that would arise in the computer with standard software in conventional use. Furthermore, there is no substantial effect or transformation in generating the questions by concatenating text matters. While the internet and the computer facilitate the operation of the claimed method by retrieving, generating and conveying information, they are not central to the purpose of the claimed invention. [So unlike the loyalty card in Welcome-Catuity], the claimed invention simply monopolises a scheme where the internet and the computer are used for mere convenience for operating the scheme.
Accordingly, the delegate rejected the application in that form. However, at [59], the delegate considered there could nonetheless be patentable subject matter:
the description of the opposed patent contemplates generating the questions automatically based upon the identification of particular keywords within the assessable criteria, and upon additional contextual information obtained from Evidence Guides, Range Statements and Employability Skills associated with Qualifications and Units of Competency without requiring human intervention.
and so allowed 60 days for amendments to be brought in (the delegate also flagged a potential fair basing problem for the proposed amendment).
Myall Australia Pty Ltd v RPL Central Pty Ltd [2011] APO 48 (link to be provided when available)
On Telstra’s opposition to the grant of Amazon’s 1-click patent in Australia, the Commissioner’s delegate has found that:
claims 1, 2 and 4 to 61 were invalid;
but:
It seems to me that the use to which server generated client identifiers [i.e., cookies] are put in the present invention is both an elegant and inventive way of achieving one action ordering functionality. Therefore I consider that any of the claims having this integer fulfil the requirement of subparagraph 18(1)(b)(ii) of involving an inventive step. These are claims 3 and 62 to 141.
Back in October, Jessup J found Chiropedic’s design for a mattress and base (registered under the 1906 Act) valid and infringed, by only 2 of a number of Radburg’s competing mattresses.
The first point of interest is the impact of a statement of novelty. A second point of interest is the impact of trade variants or “features commonly used in the trade”. Thirdly, his Honour ruled on the costs to be taken into account in the course of an account of profits.
This was the representation in the design (ADR 127723)
There was the usual statement of monopoly, limiting the design to the features of shape or configuration.
Unusually, there was also a statement of novelty:
Novelty is claimed in the shape and configuration of the upper layer of the mattress portion of the mattress and base as indicated by the beading as shown in the representations.
Chiropedic (the design owner) contended that novelty or originality of its design was not limited by this statement and, even if it were, validity and infringement still fell to be assessed by consideration of the design as a whole citing, in support, the judgment of Davies and Whitlam JJ in Richsell v Khoury at [7].
Jessup J reviewed the cases referred to in Richsell, but discovered that they did not actually deal with it. His Honour found considerably greater assistance in the Franki Report which had led to the introduction of the concept:
On the other hand we were of the opinion that the Registrar should be given power to require a ‘statement of novelty’ to be lodged. By ‘statement of novelty’ we mean a statement dealing with the features of a design that may be said to provide the basis for the design being new or original. For example, if in a design for a chair the significant feature is in the shape of the two front legs and attention is drawn to this fact in a statement of novelty, while there would be no infringement of the design unless the infringing article satisfied the tests for infringement of the chair as a whole, nevertheless it is reasonable to assume that, in testing the novelty and originality of the design, attention would be directed to the two front legs and that this feature of the design would be given particular weight in testing infringement, although an infringement could not be proved unless the relevant tests were satisfied in respect of the whole chair. (my emphasis)
and Slade LJ’s consideration in Sommer Allibert of the similar concept in the UK legislation (the latter of which had not been referred to in Richsell or Polyaire). Accordingly, Jessup J held:
[22] …. The argument which Davies and Whitlam JJ rejected in that case was that, in making the comparison required by s 17(1), one should look only at the features for which novelty had been claimed. It is one thing to say that the registered owner should not be permitted to use his or her own statement of novelty for the purpose of shutting the court’s eyes to the appearance of a complete design, and to do so to his or her own advantage. It is another thing altogether to say that the registered owner should not be held to such a statement of novelty when the court comes to consider what aspects of the registered design are new or original. The court’s eyes would then be open to the complete design, of course, but it should, in my view, assess that design against the prior art with a particular emphasis upon those features that the registered owner himself or herself, at the point of registration, considered to be novel.
Paying particular attention to the features identified in the Statement of Novelty, his Honour went on to find the design valid over the prior art. For example, it had a relatively square look where the horizontal surface met the upper line of beading, while the prior art was relatively curved. Similarly, the proportion of the upper layer to the lower lower of the mattress was significant over the prior art.
These findings had particular significance when it came to considering infringement. One of Radburg’s designs was found to be identical to the registered design. A second was an obvious imitation. A number of others, however, escaped liability as they either had similar convex curvature to the prior art rather than the square look of the registered design or the upper layer of the mattress was a significantly smaller proportion of the mattress; many of them also had quite different ribbing.
One striking visual difference was discounted in the comparisons: the mattresses in some of the prior art had three layers, not two; so that the mattress could be flipped over and used. The evidence established, however, that the omission or inclusion of the bottom or third layer was a variant commonly resorted to in the trade. Another feature, an “inward set” was apparently visible to those in the trade on fastidious inspection, but his Honour found it did not strike the eye and was an immaterial variation.
Finally, on the principles to be applied in the account, Jessup J ruled that the respondent’s bills of materials should be used (where available) on the principle that they reflected as closely as possible the actual costs incurred and so, where the evidence showed that margins earned on different product lines were not uniform, the respondent would not generate a windfall profit.
IP Australia has released two more discussion papers of reform proposals:
Flexible search and
examination
Flexible Search and Examination (patents)
Streamlining the patent process
The Streamlining paper has some ambitious goals:
Removing unnecessary differences in law between Australia and overseas jurisdictions. This would help reduce the cost to applicants of re-drafting claims to meet the various requirements of each jurisdiction. It would also reduce the potential for errors to occur as a result of the applicant being unaware of such differences.
Simplifying and modernising systems for processing patent applications. These include processes associated with amending details relating to patent applications, processing Patent Cooperation Treaty2 (PCT) applications entering the ‘national phase’, and accessing or restricting access to information relating to a patent.
Remedying other procedural problems within the patent system..
In relation to ‘harmonising’, proposals include:
Interpretation of the prior art—For the purposes of determining novelty, citations are to be construed at the priority date of the claims under examination rather than the date of publication of the citation.
Whole of contents citation—For the purposes of determining novelty, only the information in the citation at its filing date is to be taken into account.
A claimed product will no longer be patentable merely because it is produced by a patentable process or method.
If the product per se in a product-by-process claim is unpatentable in light of the prior art base, the claim to the product will be unpatentable even though the disclosed product was made by a patentable process.
The claims shall not, except where necessary, rely on reference to the description or drawings.
When an application includes an omnibus claim, an examiner is likely to object to the claim unless it is apparent from the face of the specification that it is necessary for the claim to refer to the description or drawings in order to define the invention.
On flexible examination, proposals include:
An early search and opinion would provide an early indication of the validity of a patent (section 3.1). This would also provide the public and business with earlier certainty as to where they have freedom to operate.
The introduction of various levels of examination. This would ensure that the fee charged to applicants for examination of a patent application would reflect the extent to which the examination relies on work done by other offices (section 3.2).
An option for third parties to request examination of an application. This would provide third parties with an opportunity to obtain an earlier determination of a patent application that potentially impacts on their commercial interests (section 3.3).
