One of the objectives of the Raising the Bar IP law reforms – most of which commenced on 15 April 2013 – was to reduce delays in the resolution of patent (and trade mark) applications.  The perceived problem with such delays was not that applicants were unhappy with the speed of processing of their applications (in fact, most choose to defer examination and acceptance of their patent applications), but rather that delays create uncertainty about whether a patent will be granted, and what scope the granted claims might have.  As noted in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Raising the Bar Bill, ‘[d]elay may suit the party, but it is not in the interests of the public, or the party’s competitors.’

There were four main features of the reforms that were expected to reduce delays and uncertainty:

1. reduction, from six months to two months, of the period within which an applicant is required to request examination, once directed to do so by the patent office;
2. reduction of the maximum period available for an applicant to obtain acceptance of a patent application, following issue of an initial examination report, from 21 months down to 12 months;
3. ‘tightening’ of the rules around when divisional applications can be validly filed, to reduce opportunities for what the Explanatory Memorandum describes as ‘abusive uses’; and
4. refinement of opposition proceedings, mostly in the form of more stringent criteria for obtaining extensions of time.

The reforms to opposition proceedings had an almost immediate impact, since they applied to all new oppositions filed on or after 15 April 2013, as well as (to a more limited degree) oppositions that were already in progress.  However, since over 99.5% of all accepted applications are not opposed, the reduction in opposition duration is irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of cases. 

It has taken longer to reach the point at which there is sufficient data to evaluate the effect of the change to the examination period, since this only applied to applications for which a request for examination was filed on or after 15 April 2013.  Many of these applications remained in the system for years.  Indeed, the last patent to be granted under the pre-Raising the Bar regime – without being additionally delayed by opposition proceedings – was no. 2010311063, which was derived from a PCT application that entered the national phase in Australia on 17 May 2012.  Examination was requested on 9 April 2013, and a first report issued on 7 August 2018 (after the application inadvertently lapsed and was restored).  The application was eventually accepted on 17 February 2020, and the patent granted on 18 June 2020.

I have now analysed nearly two decades worth of Australian patent examination data, spanning the period before and after commencement of the Raising the Bar reforms.  Further details and charts are below, but in summary I have found that:

1. reduction of the maximum examination period by nine months (from 21 to 12 months) has resulted in a drop of only a little over three months in the median period between initial examination and acceptance of successful applications;
2. the reforms have not, however, resulted in any lasting improvement in the pendency of the most ‘stubborn’ applications, which are only accepted following one or more divisional applications being filed for the purposes of continuing examination (for want of any better term, I call these ‘continuation divisionals’);
3. as a result, the ‘top’ 2% of cases are still pending for 900 days or more between an initial examination report being issued and an application finally being accepted;
4. perversely, following an initial temporary drop in the number of continuation divisionals, the reforms actually seem to have resulted in an increase in the proportion of divisional applications that are filed for the primary purpose of continuing examination;
5. on the other hand, however, the major use (i.e. over 60%) of divisional applications remains their primary purpose of pursuing alternative claims following acceptance of claims in a parent application.

Overall, reducing the examination period has had a relatively minimal effect on total pendency of patent applications – a reduction in the time prior to examination, i.e. between filing and a first examination report being issued, has been much more significant.  However, it appears to have had the unintended consequence of increasing the use of divisional applications to continue examination.