As I reported back in January, there were some indications of weakening patent filings by Australian applicants in 2020. Domestic applicants filed 10% fewer Australian standard applications than in 2019. And while provisional filings overall fell by only 2%, those prepared with professional assistance – which involve greater expense, but are also far more likely to provide a sound basis for valuable future patent rights – fell by nearly 5%. While perhaps not the sole factor, it is logical to assume that the business impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was somewhat influential in this decline. Of course, Australian application numbers are not the only indicator of filing activity. Each year, Australian residents file over 1,500 international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), representing potential future filings not only in Australia, but also in any of the other 152 (as at the time of writing) contracting states. So it is also interesting to know whether there was a corresponding decline in PCT filings by Australian residents in 2020.
The short answer is, possibly, but not as large as the decline in standard application filings. While it is almost certain that some PCT applications filed in 2020 have yet to be published, and are therefore not visible, the worst-case decline in international filings by Australian residents is around 6%. However, once all applications are published and available to be counted, there may be closer to 2% fewer PCT applications filed by Australians in 2020 as compared with 2019. This would be consistent with a similar decline in the previous year, and with the recent trend in provisional filings, which predate the pandemic.
Furthermore, the pattern of PCT filings across 2020 was much the same as in previous years, with no indication of applicant behaviour being influenced by the progress of the pandemic.
Revelation Biosciences, Inc., a clinical-stage life sciences company focused on the development of immunologic‑based therapies for the prevention and treatment of disease, and Petra Acquisition, Inc., today announced they have entered into a definitive merger agreement for a business combination that will result in Revelation becoming a publicly-traded company.
In the case of Hindustan Unilever Ltd v. An Opposing Party, the Bombay High Court called out the practice of seeking separate reliefs of injunction for passing off and infringement when pleadings were presented in respect of matters of trademark infringement.
In this blog post I summarized the potential legal liability of issuers raising capital using Title II Crowdfunding (aka Rule 506(c)), Title III Crowdfunding (aka Reg CF), and Title IV Crowdfunding (aka Regulation A). Here, I’ll summarize the potential legal liability of a registered Title III funding portal. To start, let’s distinguish between two kinds …
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As I recently (tentatively) predicted, on Friday 30 July 2021 Justice Beach in the Federal Court of Australia handed down a judgment giving Australia the dubious honour of becoming the first country in the world to legally recognise a non-human as a valid inventor on a patent application: Thaler v Commissioner of Patents[2021] FCA 879. I would suggest that the remarkable speed with which this unnecessarily lengthy (228 paragraphs) decision was rendered, after being heard on 2 July 2021, may reflect the judge’s enthusiasm for issuing such a ground-breaking ruling. Unfortunately, I do not share that enthusiasm, and I am confident that there are many others who are equally uncomfortable with the outcome. My hope is that this includes officials within IP Australia and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, and that the decision will be duly appealed to a Full Bench of the court. It is, in my view, deeply regrettable that the Commissioner of Patents did not put on a stronger defence in the first instance because, even though an appeal was probably inevitable either way, the worldwide publicity that this decision is now generating is not necessarily beneficial for Australia.
The judge summarised his reasoning (at [10]) that:
…in my view an artificial intelligence system can be an inventor for the purposes of the Act. First, an inventor is an agent noun; an agent can be a person or thing that invents. Second, so to hold reflects the reality in terms of many otherwise patentable inventions where it cannot sensibly be said that a human is the inventor. Third, nothing in the Act dictates the contrary conclusion.
The patent system faces many challenges, but right now a need to grant more patents in a wider range of circumstances in not one of them. We are in the grip of a global pandemic, and very serious questions are being asked about whether patents deliver a net benefit to the people of the world by incentivising the development of new vaccines and treatments, or whether they have the detrimental effect of denying affordable access to vital care and protection in poor and developing nations. While I am firmly in the former camp, it only becomes harder to defend the patent system when opponents see the law expanding access to allow inventions generated by machines – potentially including those owned and controlled by giant corporations.
So what does Australia gain by being the first – and possibly only – country in the world to legally recognise non-human inventors? Nothing, as far as I can see, other than a whole lot of unneeded publicity and global scrutiny of our patent laws. If we are lucky, we will not receive many serious patent applications for inventions generated by machine inventors, and little practical harm will be done. At worst, however, we could become the only country in the world to grant patents on such inventions, mostly filed by foreign applicants, creating exclusive rights that are enforceable only in Australia to the relative detriment of Australian innovators and consumers.