2 March 2012
You would be forgiven for having missed this news given everything else that was happening in Canberra this week, but the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Bill 2011 was passed by the Senate on 27 February 2012. The Bill will now go before the House of Representatives in the autumn sitting and is expected to come into force later this year.
The Bill targets five key areas:
- improving the quality of granted patents;
- creating a scheme for free access to patented inventions for regulatory approvals and research;
- reducing delays in the resolution of patent and trademark applications;
- improving enforcement mechanisms for trademarks and copyright; and
- simplifying the IP system and assisting the operations of the IP profession.
For more information about the operation of the new law, and how it might affect you, see our client alert here, and our previous blog posts of 15 March 2011 here and 22 June 2011 here.
