The Productivity Commission released its final report into Australia’s IP arrangements in December 2016 (covered in our post earlier this year, ‘IP Rights vs IP Wrongs’).  Now, the Australian Government has weighed in on the Commission’s recommendations, supporting some and ‘noting’ others. With respect to patent law, the Government supports the following recommendations: Add an…

IP Australia has recently published its Exposure Drafts for the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2017 and the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Regulations 2017 for public comment. The amendments aim to “align and streamline the processes for obtaining, maintaining and challenging intellectual property (IP) rights” and to ” reduce the regulatory burden for businesses that…

Article 123 (2) EPC and corresponding national provisions prohibit an applicant or patentee from amending a patent application or patent such that its subject-matter extends beyond the content of the application as originally filed. The statute is the same throughout Europe, but the practice is not always so. An issue where the Case Law of…