At first glance, Australian patent filing numbers for June look surprisingly like good news for the pandemic-ravaged economy. Australian provisional filings were up 4.5% on the same period in 2019, while innovation patent filings were up by an astonishing 141%. Overall ‘original’ filing work (i.e. new applications not claiming priority from any earlier filing) by patent attorneys was up by just over 15%. On closer inspection, however, these headline figures present an overly rosy view of the underlying reality. The boost in provisional filings was driven entirely by self-represented applicants, while the surge in innovation patent filings – which was also responsible for the gains in original filings – was the result of another month of heavy use of the Australian innovation patent system by Chinese applicants. As a result, the only real beneficiary of the stronger filing numbers in June is IP Australia, which saw patent application fees increase by nearly A$37,000 when compared against the same month in 2019.
One small sliver of more positive news is that Australian standard patent applications were very slightly (0.3%) higher in June 2020 than in June 2019. This is the first month since March to show any year-on-year gain, following very significant declines in April and May. It was assisted, however, by the fact that the month of June began on a Monday this year, giving it the maximum possible number of business days – two more than in 2019. Without this, we may just as easily have seen a further decline in filings in June.
Over in New Zealand – where the total application numbers are significantly smaller than in Australia, and thus subject to larger relative fluctuations – filings have continued to hold surprisingly steady, with complete (standard) applications up by 1.7% and provisional filings up by 8.5% year-on-year for June.