When you're filing a patent application, are you ensuring
that the best method of performing your invention has been put
forward?
The sufficiency and support requirements under Australian patent
law received a significant "upgrade" after the Raising
the Bar (RTB) amendments1 were introduced to our
Patents Act 1990 (Cth) in 2013. These changes were
intended to bring the Australian patent specification disclosure
requirements into line with the standards applied internationally
in other major jurisdictions.
Perhaps not attracting as much attention as the new sufficiency
and support requirements was the fact that the RTB amendments left
unchanged the best method requirement under Australian law –
the only change being to provide this requirement with its very own
subsection.2 While Australia, New Zealand and the US
(examination only) have a best method requirement, many major
jurisdictions (eg, Europe, China, Canada, Korea, Japan and UK) do
not, and so it is timely
