To my horror, I seem to have spent quite a lot of time recently reading about and thinking about the philosophy of IP law. A year ago, I would have rolled my eyes and edged away from anyone who said something at once so pompous and so dull. At heart, I am a realist, a pragmatist. I’m primarily interested in knowing things that will help my clients win. Until recently, I took a ruthlessly...
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the Parliamentary Counsel Office when the drafting of s 14 of the Patents Act 2013 was discussed. As you may recall, s 14 provides that an invention is a patentable invention if, amongst other things, it is a manner of manufacture within the meaning of s 6 of the Statute of Monopolies 1623. Yep, 1623. From the time of King James I. And this is...
I know, I know – we are all intellectual property specialists; we have the words ‘intellectual property’ sprinkled liberally throughout our websites; we read intellectual property articles and cases; we go to intellectual property conferences…. And yet. “Intellectual property” is just a catch-all, a voluminous handbag filled with largely unrelated items, some...
I am a little anxious about this post. Am I about to stick a knife into a sacred cow? Will it attack me? So I’ll dive straight in: I don’t think patent examination hearings really work in many instances. The structure and the system don’t match the skill-sets of the people involved. Let’s think about what happens when you file a patent application. The patent...
Two topics I have been thinking, speaking and writing a lot about this year are patent support and patent sufficiency. There are a number of reasons I have focused on these: First, they are difficult issues to get a handle on, and I wanted to really, properly get to grips with them. (Honestly, I think very few people do really understand these issues, and perhaps that is a reflection of the...
I just went to a talk on tax, and it was uplifting. I mean, it was still a seminar, but in terms of fun factor I would rate it somewhere between listening to Mike Hosking (pretty bad) and Australian Lego Masters (oddly quite fun to watch with the kids). The speaker was Dr Tim Benbow, who is a partner at EY and is part of its R&D tax incentive team. And he did actually open his...
Interim injunctions involve not only legal principles, but also a more visceral appeal to the judge’s perception of what is fair and right. The judge needs to make the assessment quickly and on the basis of limited evidence. Yet the decision is incredibly important and will often put an end to the entire case – especially in the IP context. As a result, interim injunction...
The discussion paper on the IP Amendment Bill was issued recently and submissions are being received at the moment (details here).
I’m going to do a series of posts highlighting the key issues in each of the sections of the discussion paper, starting with patents.
One of my favourite times of the year is the Auckland Writers Festival, which sadly has just finished. I always fizz for weeks afterwards, neurons bathed in new and invigorating ideas. I’m always encouraged, too, by the number of lawyers and judges who can be seen in the audience there. Surely it is a good sign that our profession is filled with people who actively seek out new ideas and...
