Australia

country-region-todo

In Australia, there are two types of patent. There's patents, and "innovation patents". The latter are minimally examined (which lead to someone getting a patent on the wheel), but these are not the normal, main category of patents.

Legislation

(See Australian Patents Act 1990)

[1]

Patent office practice

The Australian patent office is: IPAustralia

According to IPAustralia, the criteria for eligibility include: "Your invention must ... be a 'manner of manufacture'. It includes any device, substance, method or process, but it excludes artistic creations, mathematical methods, plans, schemes or other purely mental processes;"

See also: Representative of IPAustralia describing the situation with software patents

Case law

In 1991, the patent commissioner rejected a software patent application on the grounds that it was mathematics. On December 13 1991, Federal Court judge Burchett disagreed and said this patent was indeed valid.

"See Grant v Commissioner of Patents [2006] FCAFC 120m July 17th 2006 where the Federal Court of Appeal refused a patent for a method of protecting assets from bankruptcy involving the setting up of a trust, a gift to the trust, and a loan back with the trustee taking a charge on the loan." - as mentioned in the UK 2006 ruling on Aerotel v. Telco.

External links

• http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au - Australia's patent office
• Comments on Australian law from New Zealand researcher Joel Wiramu Pauling
• AIPLA: A US organisation of patent lawyers gives comments on patents in Australia
• History of software patenting in Australia - only the abstract is available but it's interesting

Possibly related links for review

• http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/pa1990109/
• http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/papa2000400/
• http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/
• http://weatherall.blogspot.com/
• http://www.lawfont.com/category/ip/patent/
• http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/ipfta-paper.html#patent
• http://www.efa.org.au/ip/