Government Takes First Steps To Implement Productivity Commission Recommendations

1. The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other measures) Bill 2018

This Bill was introduced into Parliament on 28 March 2018. Since the Bill does not contain any controversial provisions we expect that it will be passed and will come into effect before the end of the year.

The main highlight of this Bill is that it includes a provision to remove Section 76A from the Patents Act 1990. This is an ambiguously worded provision that requires patentees to lodge R&D expenditure returns with the Department of Health after a patent term extension is obtained. Another highlight of the Bill is that it does not include provisions which were in an earlier exposure draft that were designed to phase out the innovation patent system. Instead, the Government has indicated that it will "undertake further consultation targeted at better understanding the needs of innovative SMEs before the phase out of the innovation patent occurs".