The UK official left Europe on 31 January 2020. However, the UK remained within Europeans legal framework for a transitional period that ended 31 December 2020. In other words, Brexit is now in force. While this has a lot of political, tax and economical consequences, Brexit also has an impact on IP rights. We will now...

As you may have read in one of my earlier blog posts, phasing out of the Australian Innovation Patent has been on the cards for a very long time. On 26 February 2020, this became reality. The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2019 received Royal Assent. This means that the Bill became law. As such, we are now in an 18-month period to phase out the Australian Innovation Patent....

Patent Protection A patent is a temporary monopoly of a maximum of 20 years. The monopoly is granted by the government of a country to the owner of the patent. In return, the owner of the patent has the duty to disclose the invention to the public in a way that a person who is skilled in the technical field can make the invention. This...

Summary A judge at the Federal Court of Australia has held that a digital advertising scheme is patentable. You will find the decision here:Rokt Pte Ltd v Commissioner of Patents  FCA 1988 Background Australian start-up Rokt Pte Ltd filed a patent application for an invention relating to a digital advertising scheme. In particular, the invention is a mechanism by which a user is...

Introduction At the World IP Summit in Amsterdam in October 2018 one of the buzz terms was “open innovation”. The concept is not new. But it seems that more and more global players, such as Facebook, Philips, Lego and Huawei, are effectively using the approach for their benefits. For example, Huawei has established a network of open...

Congratulations, you have chosen a business name and registered it through the ASIC website. Now you have the legal rights to stop anyone else using your business name. Wrong. A business name registration through ASIC is compulsory, but it does not give you any legal rights. In fact, only a registered trade mark gives you legal rights and...

What is a Patent Attorney? Let’s all be clear, the term “attorney” is confusing. It’s the American term for a lawyer. However, an Australian patent attorney is actually not a lawyer.*   What we have in common with lawyers We provide legal services and we have a law degree. Yet, we are not admitted to represent our clients in court or...

Are computer and software inventions patentable in Australia? The short answer: it depends! In this post we will take a look at what type of software inventions are patentable Australia. We also look at some examples of granted software patents. This should give you some guidance as to whether your invention may be patentable. However, in the end it depends on the specific details of each...

Overview Rokt, an Australian fast growing technology start-up is taking IP Australia to the Federal Court. The aim is to improve the law around software patents. Rokt is the applicant of a patent that was granted in 2013. However, IP Australia then retrospectively rejected it in 2015. Rokt is now appealing the decision to the Federal Court. Software Patents As many of you may know, the law...

Overview In recent years, there has been an ongoing discussion to abolish the Australian innovation patent. In fact, the Intellectual Property Law Amendments Bill 2017 included specific plans to slowly phase out the innovation patent.  However, when the Bill was introduced into Parliament, the section dealing with the abolishment was removed. As such, we are happy to report that at least for...