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IP Australia Weighs In on Proposed Amendments
17 December 2012
IP Australia has issued two further consultation papers on proposed changes to patent and trademark legislation, note Chris Sgourakis and Stephen Sharp, principals at Griffith Hack.
The proposals include:
• Replacing the requirement that the claims of a patent must be ‘fairly based on’ the matter described in the specification with a requirement the claims be ‘supported by’ the matter described in the specification.
• Broadening the prior art information available for assessing inventive step for an Australian patent.
• Introducing an exemption to patent infringement for certain experimental acts on patented inventions.
• Reducing the period for filing an opposition to a trademark application to two months (from the current three months).
• ‘Product-by-process’ claims and ‘omnibus’ claims would no longer be allowed.
• Clarifying that a party can apply to the Courts for a declaration of non-infringement of a patent whether or not they have applied for, or been granted, a patent relating to the activity for which they are seeking a non- infringement declaration.
• Reducing the patent application acceptance period after the issuance of the first Examiner’s report from the current period of 21 months to 12 months.
