On appeal from a decision of a delegate of the Commissioner of Patents, a single judge (Justice Burley) of the Federal Court of Australia has found that the claims of a number of innovation patents owned by Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Ltd, directed to electronic gaming machines (EGMs), are directed to patent-eligible subject matter: Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Limited v Commissioner of Patents [2020] FCA 778.  As the judge put it in the first…

On 6 June 2010, I clicked ‘publish’ on the very first article here at the Patentology blog.  Back then I did not even have my own domain name.  The URL was patentology.blogspot.com (which still works, incidentally).  As with any new web site, and particularly a new blog in a world with millions of blogs competing for attention, I do not imagine anyone much noticed the new kid on the block.  And, frankly, that is…

Patent attorney clients are notoriously ‘sticky’ – it is well-known that they rarely change service providers.  Indeed, out of a sample of 279,035 live applications and patents managed by Australian and New Zealand patent attorneys as of early 2019, only 3,854 (1.4%) were transferred away from those attorneys over the past 16 months or so.  Of these. the overwhelming majority (3,813) were transferred to a different attorney/firm, with responsibility for the remainder (230) being taken…

Following an appeal by the Commissioner of Patents, a Full Bench of the Federal Court of Australia has overturned a decision of a single judge of the Court relating to the patent-eligibility of a computer-implemented invention.  The Full Court has ruled that a claimed method and system, developed by Singapore-based Rokt Pte Ltd, for providing ‘a dynamic, context-based advertising system, introducing a distinction between an engagement offer, without a direct advertising benefit, and an…

As reported on 20 May 2020 by the Australian Financial Review, and announced via a media release from business advisory firm Grant Thornton, around 10 staff specialising in R&D tax advice from IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) business Glasshouse Advisory are to transition to Grant Thornton by Monday, 25 May 2020.  I understand that the Glasshouse business itself is to close, with other staff made redundant.  Glasshouse is one of the businesses that…

In August 2019 the ‘Artificial Inventor Project’ team led by Ryan Abbott, Professor of Law and Health Sciences at University of Surrey UK, announced that it had filed a number of patent applications naming an artificial intelligence (AI) as inventor.  The AI, called ‘DABUS’, was developed by Missouri-based physicist Dr Stephen Thaler.  The filings – which garnered significant publicity – were a deliberate provocation, calculated to test patent laws and challenge the conventional notion that…

Last month, I wrote about IP Australia’s release of the Australian Intellectual Property Report 2020 (‘IP Report’).  I focused in particular on data included in the ‘Patents’ section of the report, and raised some questions about the methodology and the accuracy of some of the results presented.  I am pleased to say that IP Australia (more specifically, Benjamin Mitra-Kahn, who is the General Manager & Chief Economist in the Policy & Governance Group) reached…