New Patents Act New Zealand - Summary

This article reports continuing progress toward New Zealand's new Patents Act. More correctly, it reports further delays in such progress.

Following its introduction before the House of Representatives on 9 July 2008, the Patents Bill 2008 then survived a general election in November 2008, before having its first Parliamentary reading on 5 May 2009.

The Bill was approved by a clear majority of the House - and then opened to public submissions before being passed to the Commerce Select Committee for consideration. The Select Committee was originally due to report back to Parliament on 5 November 2009. However, due to the number and substance of public submissions received, the report date has been deferred until 30 March 2010.