Region: Asia-Pacific

In an earlier edition of this Journal the outcome of a case concerning patent entitlement issues arising from multiple inventors and joint patentees was reported (Journal vol 23, No 2*). At that time the case (<em>Conor Medsystems, Inc v The University of British Columbia </em>(No. 2) [2006] FCA 32) was on appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia. The decision on the appeal has now been handed down.

01 June 2007

On 26 April 2007, the High Court of Australia delivered its long awaited judgement in <em>Burge v Swarbrick</em> ([2005] FCAFC 257). The judgement has clarified the “overlap” between copyright protection and design protection, and laid down important guidelines for the coverage of each form of intellectual property protection.

01 June 2007

Trade mark owners should be aware that significant amendments to the Australian Trade Marks Act 1995 (“the Act”), outlined in the Trade Marks Amendment Act 2006, have now come into effect.

01 June 2007

The Australian Designs Act 2003 (the new Act) was introduced on 17 June 2004. To date there have been approximately 10,000 design applications filed under the new Act.

01 June 2007

The Australian mining and resources industry is a long-established industry with an emerging technology base and is a global leader in several specialist areas, including software applications for the mining and mineral industries.

01 June 2007

As a signatory to GATT since 1992, and a WTO member since 2002, Taiwan has continuously revised its IP laws and regulations in order to keep in line with the global community. As the protection and exploitation of IP rights have profound business implications and involve greater complexities than other property rights, two new IP laws were passed recently to establish a specialized court for IP disputes.

30 March 2007

The Australian Patent Office has implemented a five-fold increase in excess claims fees. Accordingly, applicants may now wish to consider strategies to reduce or avoid these charges.

01 March 2007

Innovation patents are a second tier form of patent protection in Australia. A patent monopoly is granted for eight years for globally novel ‘innovations’, an ‘innovation’ being the inclusion of a feature that ‘makes a substantial contribution to the working’ of the product or method. While this legislation remains untested in the Australian Court system, for many inventions which would not qualify as ‘inventive’ it is difficult to determine by what criteria they would qualify as ‘innovative’.

01 March 2007

Customs Services throughout the world manage and protect their countries’ borders, working to detect and deter the movement and trafficking of illegal goods such as illicit drugs, endangered species, nuclear/hazardous waste, weapons and goods which contravene the intellectual property rights (IPR) of third parties (counterfeit and pirated goods).

01 March 2007

Over the years, Taiwan's Patent Act has been amended many times to pursue the international consensus and coincide with global patent practice. Because there exists several political issues relating to Taiwan’s identity, Taiwan has not been a signatory of many global patent treaties. As a result, several practices, specific to Taiwan have been created. In

01 January 2007