Patent

Innovation patent consultation on the consultation

IP Australia has issued a consultation paper seeking the public’s view on (the now departed) ACIP’s recommendations for the innovation patent. Specifically:

IP Australia is seeking feedback from interested stakeholders on:

  • the ACIP recommendation that the government should consider abolishing the innovation patent system
  • any alternative suggestions to encourage innovation amongst SMEs.

Get your comments in by 25 September 2015

IP Australia’s consultation paper here (pdf or word). The ACIP report being “consultated” upon, via here and updated here.

Innovation patent consultation on the consultation Read More »

Australian Intellectual Property Report 2015

IP Australia has released its Australian Intellectual Property Report 2015.

In addition to reporting on a range of statistics and some commentary, the report includes a number of “interactive” graphs that you may explore. Much, if not all, of the data is available through the Government Open Data initiative.

The headline point is that applications for trade marks and plant breeder’s rights increased over 2013, while applications for patents and registered designs decreased. The report attributes the decline in patent applications to the increased threshold arising from the commencement of most of the substantive reforms in the Raising the Bar and the rush to file before their commencement.

Australians are the largest source of filings for trade mark, registered designs and pbr. US-based applicants the largest source of patent applications; Australian residents being the second largest.

There were 25,947 applications for standard patents in 2014, a decrease of 13% on 2013. 19,034 standard patents were granted; an increase of 13% over 2013. Over 94% were granted to non-residents. The average number of months from filing to request for examination fell from 16.3 to 13.6 months; the average time from request to first report is just over 9 month and, on average, the time from first examination report to acceptance was a further 14 months. Australians filed 9,012 patent applications abroad in 2013 (41% in the USA), up 3% on 2012.

There were 1523 applications for innovation patents, down from 1676 in 2013. Australians accounted for 66% of the filings.

There were 64,381 trade mark applications filed in Australia in 2014, up 2% from 2013; correspondingly, Australians filed 16,267 applications overseas (in 2013). The top 3 filing destinations were the USA, China and NZ – accounting for 50%. The USA supplanted China as the “top destination”. Apparently, this is in line with a global trend.

6550 designs were registered in 2014, and 1452 were certified – almost double the number certified in 2013. IP Australia speculates that there are few applications to register designs because:

According to Lim et al (2014) the role of IP rights in the market for designs is limited.9 Buyers and sellers in the market view designs as a service that is co-created. As IP rights protect the artefact, not the service, IP rights are perceived as a secondary issue in the marketplace. This view of design rights provides insights into the low volume of design registrations relative to patents and trade marks.

The number of applications for plant breeder’s rights skyrocketed from 330 in 2013 to 341!

The report notes that IP Australia is aiming in 2015 to complete research projects into innovation trends in the mining industry, who and in which areas in the textile, clothing and footwear industry is filing patents and the role of geographical indicators.

Australian Intellectual Property Report 2015 Read More »

Springboard injunctions and patents

In December, Beach J found AUG infringed Streetworx’ innovation patent for a street light fitting. Now, his Honour has granted an injunction restraining AUG from further infringing the patent, but has refused to grant a “springboard injunction” or order delivery up.

Before the trial, AUG had secured contracts with two municipal councils, Monash and Moonee Valley, to supply, respectively, 8,000 and 6,000 infringing light fittings. The lights have yet to be supplied. AUG couldn’t negotiate a royalty or licence fee with Streetworx so it could supply. Therefore, it sought to modify its fittings so they no longer infringed. Streetworx sought the “springboard injunction” to block that supply on the basis that AUG secured the contracts with the infringing product and should not be allowed to take the benefit of that infringement.

Beach J accepted that the Court does have power to order a “springboard injunction” of the kind sought.

Beach J accepted Streetworx’ argument that but for the infringing conduct there would not have been any contract to supply.[1] However, that was not enough to secure the “springboard injunction” as his Honour considered it was also necessary to consider the quality of the advantage obtained by the infringement.

[81] …. The quality of the unwarranted advantage needs to be considered. In the scenario where the relevant integers had no causal significance (ie absent the relevant integers the contract would have been awarded for the product in any event), the nature and quality of the unwarranted advantage is less egregious than if the presence of the relevant integers in the product played a critical role in the decision to award the contract. So, in that more nuanced fashion, it is relevant to consider the causal significance of the presence of the relevant integers to the decision to award the contract. The more the unwarranted advantage is causally tied to the significance of the presence of the relevant integers, the stronger the basis for the injunction and vice versa. The concept of unwarranted advantage contains within it a normative aspect and has a spectrum quality rather than Streetworx’s simplistic binary characterisation of it either being established or not established. In other words, there are degrees of unwarranted advantage which are to be considered and which are not foreclosed from consideration by merely demonstrating “but for” factual causation as Streetworx has demonstrated in the present case.

In this case, Beach J considered that damages or an account of profits would be an adequate remedy.[2] Secondly, the qualitative advantage gained by the infringement was low. So far as the evidence went, the infringing features were not a selling point in AUG achieving the sales. Although there was no evidence directly from the Councils themselves, this was supported by the fact they were prepared to accept the non-infringing products in place of the infringing fittings. Thirdly, his Honour took into account the impact of the proposed injunction on the innocent Councils in a market where there were limited suppliers.

His Honour also refused to order delivery up as the fittings had been modified so that they no longer infringed.

Streetworx Pty Ltd v Artcraft Urban Group Pty Ltd (No 2) [2015] FCA 140


  1. If the fitting to be supplied had not been itself the infringement – a holistic infringement, but rather merely a component such as the brake of a car, Beach J may have been prepared to take the more nuanced approach advocated by AUG at the causation stage.  ?
  2. This is an unusual consideration at the final injunction stage as typically the Courts will not condone future infringing conduct. Here, of course, his Honour found the conduct would not be infringing. His Honour did order that the price of escaping the injunction would be an undertaking from AUG to pay its gross margin from the sales into a trust account pending the damages/account inquiry.  ?

Springboard injunctions and patents Read More »

ACCC loses antitrust case against Pfizer

Flick J has ruled that Pfizer did not breach antitrust rules by trying to maintain sales of Lipitor after it came off patent.

Pfizer’s patent on atorvastatin (Lipitor) was due to expire on 18 May 2012.[1] Its analysis showed it was facing a revenue cliff: from $771 million a year in 2011 to $70 million a years by 2015. Pfizer came up with a 3-part plan:

  1. in the 18 months prior to expiry, it stopped supplying Lipitor through wholesalers and started supplying pharmacies directly (thereby earning the wholesale margin for itself);
  2. it offered a 5% discount to those pharmacies it supplied + a 5% “rebate” credited to an accrual fund. The “rebate” was repayable to the pharmacy if it committed to buy from Pfizer a specified proportion of its anticipated generic atorvastatin needs after the patent expired – the amount of “rebate” repaid would vary according to the proportion of generic needs committed to and the time frame for the commitment. For example, the pharmacy would receive 100% if it committed to taking 75% of its anticipated needs for 12 months. but only 50% if it committed to taking 75% for only 6 months.
  3. Pfizer also made a bundled offer – it could offer to supply both Lipitor and its generic product “atorvastatin Pfizer”.

The ACCC brought action alleging by implementing this plan, Pfizer had contravened:

  • section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act (CCA), which prohibits a corporation with a substantiall degree of power in a market from taking advantage of that power for proscribed anti-competitive purposes; and
  • section47 of the CCA which prohibits exclusive dealing that has the purpose or effect of substantially lessening competition in a market.

Flick J has dismissed the ACCC’s action.

Relevant market

His Honour found that the relevant market was the market for the supply to community pharmacies in Australia of atorvastatin as the ACCC contended. Pfizer argued the market was the market for the wholesale supply of pharmaceutical products and over the counter products to community pharmacies.

Substantial degree of power in the market

His Honour also found that Pfizer had a substantial degree of power in that market until late 2011 and had taken advantage of that power by implementing its scheme. Pfizer did not have a substantial degree of power in the market from January 2012 on wards.

Before January 2012, Pfizer was the only supplier of atorvastatin and the constraints on the price it could charge imposed by the PBS was “not sufficient to render its market power anything other than “substantial”.” Flick J recognised that there was no precise date which could be identified as the point where Pfizer’s market power ceased to be substantial. By late 2011, however, that power was no longer “enduring” as the expiry date of the patent loomed closer. By February 2012, Ranbaxy was able to enter the market offering its generic atorvastatin for sale[2] and the other intending generic suppliers had registered their products on the Therapeutic Goods Register and were starting sales discussions with potential customers.

Flick J found Pfizer took advantage of its power to impose the direct sales to pharmacies model because the pharmacies were opposed to it, but Pfizer was able to impose it on them as the only possible source of atorvastatin. Similarly, the rebate scheme took advantage of that power because it created an expection of payments in the future on terms that were unclear and yet to be decided. Flick J found that the amount of money accumulated within the rebate scheme by the time the patent expired was very substantial – $35 million – a powerful incentive to buy product from Pfizer. One might wonder, however, why the position would have been any different if the terms on which the rebate could be claimed had been clear.

No anti-competitive purpose

Even in the period before January 2012 when it had a substantial degree of power in the market, however, there was no contravention of 2 46 because it did not take advantage of its market power for a proscribed anti-competitive purpose.

Pfizer also did not contravene s 47 because in implementing the scheme it did not have the purpose of substantially lessening competition.

Rather than having a purpose of deterring competition by the generics, Flick J accepted that Pfizer was motivated by rationale business objectives. For example, selling directly to pharmacies rather than through wholesalers:

But my question, Mr Latham, was directed to Lipitor and generic atorvastatin, not some dream of establishing a generics business? — But once again you’re asking me to make a decision on – on one product, when I have seven products, over $1 billion, coming off patent. And it’s not just Pfizer Australia. It’s around the world. And to try to get the best business organisation that’s going to deliver continuing operations through those generic products, plus, they have these additional benefits of being closer to pharmacy. Going through the licensee doesn’t tick that important box.

The requirement to take 75% of the pharmacies needs to qualify for the “rebate” also did not have an anti-competitive purpose. Rather, Flick J found that the requirement had been reduced from 100% to 75% – sacrificing $30 million in potential revenue – to enable the pharmacy to establish a second source of supply.

s 51(3)

Section 51(3) exempts from s 47 conditions in, amongst other things, licences of patent to the extent they relate to the invention to which the patent relates or articles made according to the invention.

Although its operation did not fall to be determined because there was no contravention of s 47, Flick J would have found it did not apply in this case. His Honour considered that the sale of atorvastatin to the pharmacies would not involve any licence. More importantly, his Honour would have held that the condition was collateral to the patent and so outside the scope of the exemption.

What actually happened

In the event, Pfizer went from selling 100% of the prescribed atorvastatin (as Lipitor) in March 2012, to 32% of prescription in April and settling around 22 – 23% by June 2012. While Pfizer antiticpated marketing advantages in being the only supplier likely to supply generic atorvastatin in pills the same shape, size and colour as Lipitor, the evidence showed it held 100% of the generic market until September 2012, after which its share fell away to 16 – 17% by March/April 2013.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd [2015] FCA 113


  1. PBS figures for the year to June 2012 showed Lipitor was the highest cost to the scheme ($593 million) followed by rosuvastatin ($359 million) and ranibizumab ($308 million).  ?
  2. Pfizer and Ranbaxy had settled other litigation on terms which enabled Ranbaxy to enter the market before the patent expired.  ?

ACCC loses antitrust case against Pfizer Read More »

The statutory right to terminate a patent licence

Section 145 provides the licensee of a patent with a statutory right to terminate the licence on 3 months’ written notice after the patent has expired. What happens, however, if more than one patent has been licensed?

MPEG LA is the patent pool vehicle which licenses the essential patents for the production of DVDs, DVD players and some other video codecs.[1] It granted a licence of a number of patents to Regency Media. In June 2012, after some, but not all, of the patents had expired, Regency Media sent a notice seeking to exercise its right to terminate under s 145. By the trial, some other patents had expired, but some of those licensed were still extant.

Section 145 provides:

Termination of contract after patent ceases to be in force

 (1)  A contract relating to the lease of, or a licence to exploit, a patented invention may be terminated by either party, on giving 3 months’ notice in writing to the other party, at any time after the patent, or all the patents, by which the invention was protected at the time the contract was made, have ceased to be in force.

(2)  Subsection (1) applies despite anything to the contrary in that contract or in any other contract.

The short answer: according to Flick J it appears the licensee has to wait until all the licensed patents have expired before the licensee can exercise the right under s 145.

A bit longer answer: Acknowledging the force of Regency Media’s argument that each patent could be described as being for a patented invention (a term not otherwise defined in the Act), Flick J accepted MPEG LA’s argument. According to MPEG LA, the licence granted rights over three groups of technologies:

  • the MPEG–2 Decoding Products;
  • the MPEG–2 Encoding Products; and
  • the MPEG–2 Packaged Medium,

each of which groups constituted a patented invention for the purposes of s 145 and so s 145 could not be triggered until all had expired.

At [40], Flick J appears to arrive at this conclusion because each of the three groups constituted a “manner of manufacture” in the NRDC sense irrespective of how many patents fell within the particular group. His Honour also thought s 145 was drafted before modern licensing administrators came on to the scene and so may well be inaptly worded to deal with such creatures. However, his Honour considered at [43]:

A court, should be slow to prefer a construction which would permit the termination of an agreement in respect to patents which have not ceased to be in force and which would deny to a patent holder the benefit of the payment of royalties in amounts that have been the subject of agreement. Section 145 manifestly does not permit a contract to be terminated where “all of the patents, by which the invention [is] protected” have not ceased to be in force.

MPEG LA, L.L.C. v Regency Media Pty Ltd [2014] FCA 180


  1. A modern day American antitrust miracle: the official version; Wikipedia’s version.  ?

The statutory right to terminate a patent licence Read More »

Securities over IP

IP Australia has published a reminder:

The transitional period to register any securities (charges, mortgages etc.) you may have taken out over IP ( registered trade marks, patents, designs etc.) on the Personal Property Securities Register expires on 31 January 2014.

The Personal Properties Security Register is a national register of claims to security interests over personal property (which includes our imaginary subject matters) in essence to provide a one stop shop for notice about such claims.

If you (or your client) has taken out a security over someone else’ intellectual property or where the other person’s intellectual property is being used as collateral for repayment, the security should be registered on the Personal Property Securities Register. In very broad terms: if the security isn’t registered in the Personal Property Securities Register, its claim to priority over any later security or even enforceability could be lost.

IP Australia’s warning points out that it is not enough to have registered the security interest in a register of IP such as the Trade Marks Register, the Patents Register, the Register of Designs or the Register of PBR. These registrations will not be transferred automatically to the Personal Property Securities Register. Morever, registration of the security interest on one or more of those IP Registers will not take priority over a later registration on the Personal Property Securities Register.

So, if you or your client have taken out such a security and haven’t registered it in the Personal Property Securities Register yet, ‘hurry, hurry, hurry; quick, quick, quick’ (with apologies to Alexis Jordan).

Although IP Australia’s warning relates specifically to the registered IP it administers, the legislation also applies to unregistered IP such as copyright.

IP Australia’s media release.

IP Australia’s general overview of PPS

PPS R.

Securities over IP Read More »

Summer must be over …

IP Australia has released a consultation paper (pdf) (with exposure draft bill (pdf) and draft EM (pdf)) on the proposed Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2014.

According to the overview, the proposed bill will:

  • implement the Protocol amending the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Protocol – links via here), enabling Australian medicine producers to manufacture and export patented pharmaceuticals to countries experiencing health crises, under a compulsory licence from the Federal Court
  • extend the jurisdiction of the former Federal Magistrates Court, the Federal Circuit Court, to include plant breeder’s rights matters
  • allow for a single trans-Tasman patent attorney regime and single patent application and examination processes for Australia and New Zealand, as part of the broader Single Economic Market (SEM) agenda
  • make minor administrative changes to the Patents, Trade Marks and Designs Acts to repeal unnecessary document retention provisions that are already adequately governed by the Archives Act 1983
  • make minor technical amendments to the Patents Act to correct oversights in the drafting of the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act 2012 which was passed by Parliament in March 2012.

The proposed bill succeeds the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2013, which proved rather more controversial than the former government, or its advisors, expected (see, for example, here (pdf)) and lapsed with the calling of the election.

According to the consultation paper, the proposed bill largely replicates the lapsed bill, but there have been changes in 5 key areas.

The provisions relating to Crown Use in the lapsed bill have been withdrawn and will be the subject of a separate bill in the future.

The provisions to implement the TRIPS Protocol drew much of the controversy. According to the consultation paper, these have been amended in a number of important respects. First, it is proposed that separate applications will be required for each patent that a person seeking a licence to manufacture under the TRIPS Protocol requires. It is hoped that this will address concerns about an imbalance of negotiating power if the patentee of one patent also required access to someone else’s patent(s) to take advantage of the proposed compulsory licence.

Secondly, the proposed compulsory licence will be to exploit the patent for the relevant purpose rather than the more limited “work” the patent.

To preclude the need to change the regulations when (perhaps that should be “if”) there is a change in a country a country qualifies as a permissible import destination, and the notification requirements according to whether the country is a member of the WTO or an LDC, the regulations will refer simply to the relevant lists maintained by the WTO and/or the UN.

Whether these changes will meet the substantive objections raised against the lapsed bill remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, the draft bill fails to address one important oversight from the Raising the Bar Act. The Raising the Bar Act replaced the standard applicable during examination and opposition to the grant of a patent from one of practically certain to be invalid to one of balance of probabilities: see Sch. 1 Part 2 items 39 to 54.

It has not been determined finally what standard applies in trade mark proceedings, although the preponderance of authority in the Federal Court appears to support the “practically certain to be invalid” standard to the examination and opposition of trade marks. See for example NV Sumatra v BAT at [16] – [38]. This position was adopted by analogy to, and for conformity with, the position then prevailing for patents. The reasons why this was changed for patents are equally applicable for trade mark applications. One would think it was high time to address this.

Comments and submissions are required by 7 February 2014.

Links to IP Australia’s documents via here.

Summer must be over … Read More »

Apotex v Sanofi

Apotex v Sanofi Read More »

Patentable subject matter reform

IP Australia has issued an Issues Paper on the proposed amendments to the Patents Act:

(1) to insert an “objects” clause; and

(2) to exclude from patentable subject matter inventions which it would be “offensive” to commercially exploit.

These plans arise out of a recommendations made by ACIP which the Government announced it accepted. The consultation now is on the wording to implement those policies.

An objects clause

The consultation paper proposes 2 alternative “objects” clauses:

Option 1

…. the purpose of the legislation as being to provide an environment that promotes Australia’s national interest and enhances the well-being of Australians by balancing the competing interests of patent rights holders, the users of technology, and Australian society as a whole.

Option 2

the purpose of the patent system is to provide an environment that enhances the well-being of Australians by promoting innovation and the dissemination of technology and by balancing the competing interests of patent applicants and patent owners, the users of technology, and Australian society as a whole.

Now, one could very well wonder what possible help either of these statements might give a court if they were enacted. The consultation paper even notes that the Parliamentary Draftsman is rather ambivalent about the value of objects clauses in general:

Some objects provisions give a general understanding of the purpose of the legislation…Other objects provisions set out the general aim or principles that help the reader to interpret the detailed provisions of the legislation.

The first option is what ACIP proposed. ACIP considered its proposal a simplified version of the Objects identified in art. 7 of TRIPS:

The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations.

The consultation paper thought that Option 1 does not sufficiently recognise the economic and social welfare concerns of patent law and did not sufficiently recognise the interests of patent applicants as well as patent owners (formerly known in Olde English as patentees). As the consultation paper explains:

The economic goals of the patent system are to promote economic growth, trade and investment by encouraging innovation and the dissemination of knowledge and technology.

The patent system encourages innovation by giving patentees a period of market exclusivity in which to recoup their development costs through commercialisation of their inventions. In exchange, patentees are required to disclose the details of their inventions to the public. The patent system contributes to social welfare by providing Australians with access to new technologies and developments that otherwise would not have occurred and that improve our quality of life (for example new pharmaceuticals and medical technologies and improvements to safety and waste management technologies).

However, the patent system will only meet its economic goals if the positive effects of the patent system in stimulating investment in innovation and providing society with access to new technology are balanced against the potential negative effects of patents restricting access to follow-on innovation and increasing costs, and so restricting supply of new patented technologies.

This is better, at least the first 2 paragraphs (if one bears in mind that economists – to the extent they accept the role of patents – think of the market exclusivity as providing an incentive rather than a “reward”). The third paragraph is rather more ambivalent.The danger the third paragraph raises is that it could be used as a basis for excluding something from patentability because someone might use the patent to raise prices or the other evils identified. But, while there are some provisions in the Patents Act that address, or attempt to deal with, these issues, in many respects they seem more properly the territory of (take a deep breath) competition law.

Offensive commercial exploitation

What the consultation proposes is a new exclusion to be added to s 18:

…  for an invention the commercial exploitation which would be wholly offensive to the ordinary reasonable and fully informed member of the Australian public.

Wholly offensive?

Apparently, the test of the ordinary reasonable and fully informed member of the Australian public is intended to ensure that the exclusion is “applied in a consistent, predictable and neutral manner”. However, it is also proposed to assist the Commissioner by explicitly empowering the Commissioner  in his or her discretion to seek “non-binding” advice on ethical matters.

What seems to trigger the exclusion commercial exploitation in an wholly offensive way rather than at the specific subject matter itself. At what point is the appropriateness of the commercial exploitation determined? Will it be enough that the invention could be exploited in an wholly offensive way? The BRCA controversy erupted when Myriad announced it was going to start charging licence fees for its products. Would the ordinary, reasonable and fully informed Australian have considered its patent wholly offensive before that announcement? This rather suggests that the problem falls within the second type issue identified by ACIP: about how the patent is used, are better dealt with through Crown Use and other compulsory licence arrangements.

 

If you have views you want to inflict, they should be submitted by 27 September 2013.

Find the issues paper here.

Patentable subject matter reform Read More »

Apple and that ITC ban

Well written piece in The New Yorker outlining the role of the US International Trade Commission in patent disputes and President Obama’s veto of the ITC’s order to block imports of “older” Apple products.

Mind you, make sure you are not eating your cornflakes over breakfast or sipping your decaf skinny latte when you get to the paragraph:

Samsung’s lawyers may take their talents to Seoul, Tokyo, London, or other venues in which home-court advantage is increasingly important ….

Prof. Wegner apparently saw it differently.

Lid dip: Miguel Belmar

Apple and that ITC ban Read More »