Last month, IP Australia issued a notification informing applicants that, due to a high volume of new filings, they may experience delays in having innovation patents granted.  Innovation patents are issued following a formalities examination only – substantive examination for novelty, innovative step, and other requirements, occurs after grant, and only upon request.  As a result the delay between filing and grant is typically relatively short, and has historically been less than four…

This week, the Australian government handed down its annual budget.  At the risk of sounding overly cynical, I am always sceptical about how many of the policy measures announced in the budget will actually come to fruition, given that their funding is often dependent on hazy forecasts of future economic performance, and their implementation may span many years during which future budgets – and potentially new governments – may come and go, bringing their own…

I had just finished writing, yesterday, about the latest annual Australian IP Report, and the continuing decline in patent filings in Australia, when I decided to take a look at the numbers for March 2021.  To my immense surprise, March was a boom month for Australian patent applications!  The total number of filings, across all application types (provisional, standard, and innovation patent applications) for the month was 3,906.  To find a month in which…

Today (29 April 2021) IP Australia released the Australian Intellectual Property Report 2021 (‘IP Report’), its annual round-up of filing statistics and other facts and figures from the previous year.  As always, my interest is primarily in the Patents chapter of the IP Report and, this year, much of the data presented in that chapter will not be news to readers of this blog.  Notwithstanding small variations – due to the volatile nature of…

Some time ago – indeed, BC (i.e. before COVID) – I reported on a decision of Justice McKerracher in the case of Repipe Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Patents [2019] FCA 1956 (RePipe No 1).  RePipe is a plumbing business based in Western Australia that has developed a risk management software system called rerisk®, which is available as a service to other businesses that want to improve their workplace health and safety (WHS) processes.  The…

In a fairly predictable development, Stephen Thaler has asked the Federal Court of Australia to review the Patent Office’s finding in February that a patent application cannot be validly filed in this country naming a machine as inventor.  The ‘Application for Judicial Review’ was filed on 9 March 2021 in the Victorian Division of the court, and has been assigned number VID108/2021.  Having been represented by Davies Collison Cave (DCC) in the patent …

Since April last year, IP Australia has provided a streamlined process under which most deadlines associated with Australian patent, trade marks, and design rights – including evidence deadlines in opposition matters – could be extended by up to three months, at no charge, if the extension is required ‘due to the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic’.  That program ends on 31 March 2021.  From 1 April 2021, extensions of time will still be available…