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ARTICLE · 11 APRIL 2019

Government urged to retain Innovation Patent System

Spruson & Ferguson Lawyers
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This article emphasises the importance of retaining and revising, not abolishing, Australia's Innovation Patent System.

AustraliaIntellectual Property
Grant Shoebridge
Grant Shoebridge
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An article written by a Principal at Spruson & Ferguson, has recently been published in AMT (Australian Manufacturing Technology) magazine.  The article emphasises the importance of retaining and revising, rather than abolishing, Australia's Innovation Patent System.

Background

Innovators currently have two options for protecting inventions in Australia – the standard patent system and the innovation patent system. The innovation patent is Australia's second-tier patent system and requires that inventions have an innovative step, which is a lower threshold than an inventive step that applies to standard patents.  Also, the term of protection for an innovation patent is 8 years rather than 20 years under standard patent protection.

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