6 October 2010
Following 18 months of extensive consultations on potential reforms of the patent system, IP Australia has recently implemented a number of changes to examination practices intended to improve the quality of examination and the certainty in the validity of granted patent rights. The changes relate to:
- expedited “case management” for divisional applications; and
- a new “obvious to try” test for inventive step for applications before the Patent Office.
Our alert examining the changes and their implications for filing strategies can be found here.