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Australia
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[1]), but these are not the normal, main category of patents.
Contents
Legislation
(See Australian Patents Act 1990)
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
External links
- Comments from New Zealand researcher Joel Wiramu Pauling
- 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