As we emerge from the global pandemic, intellectual
property (IP) continues to be a focus for organisations as they
execute strategies to achieve growth in the new environment. The
Australian IP landscape has seen a significant level of activity in
2021, including important legislative change and key
decisions.
We explore a number of these developments, and those on the
horizon, in this edition of State of the Art. While many
changes to Australia's patent system are designed to bring it
into line with the position in Europe, the UK and US, there remain
significant differences – such as Australia's peculiar
'best method' requirement. By contrast, recent
consideration of new Australian patent requirements for
'support' and 'sufficiency' (introduced in 2013)
suggests that those reforms have brought the Australian position
more in line with other major jurisdictions. Australia's domain
name system is likely to expand dramatically in 2022, with the
introduction of direct
