UPDATE: Further to our previous post on the passing of the Raising the Bar amendments, the IP Whiteboard team can confirm that the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act was assented to by Australia’s Governor General on 15 April 2012. While this means that the majority of the Act’s provisions will come into force on 15 April 2013, the following provisions of the Act are now immediately in force:
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the exemption to patent infringement for activities undertaken for the purposes of research or for gaining regulatory approval (extended to non-pharmaceutical patents); and
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an amendment to section 226 of the Patents Act which will make it clear that copyright in a patent specification will not be infringed once the specification is open to public inspection.
Hot off the press, the IP Whiteboard team can confirm that the “Raising the Bar Bill” – an important piece of legislation that will have an extensive impact on Australian IP law – was passed by the House of Representatives yesterday (20 March 2012). The Bill will now be assented to (rubber-stamped by the Governor-General) and most provisions will come into effect 12 months from this date.
The Bill will have a wide ranging and interesting effect on a number of areas of IP, particularly in respect of patent and trade mark laws: see our previous posts and alerts here and here and our latest alert here.
