Ownership and licensing arrangements relating to an
Australian patent can have significant implications in infringement
and revocation proceedings. Recent decisions delivered by the
Federal Court of Australia have highlighted the need for patentees
to consider carefully and formalise their chain of title and
exclusive licensing arrangements, or else risk losing their patents
and/or the markets they protect.
There are many commercial, legal and regulatory factors which
inform and influence patent ownership and licensing arrangements.
Often an Australian patent will be owned by a foreign company which
does not itself exploit the invention in Australia, and instead
licenses a related company or a third party to do so. The foreign
patentee may be the parent company, or a related IP holding company
which licenses the patent family globally, for administrative
efficiency and/or for tax or other financial reasons. The foreign
patentee may also be the company which developed
