News

Significant changes planned for Australian patent application laws | 11 July 2011

Significant changes are planned for the law governing patent applications in Australia. The effect of the changes will be to make it slightly more difficult to obtain granted patents in that country, by making examination of applications more rigorous. In addition, it is likely that the official examination fee will increase.

These changes are expected to come into force in about 12 months’ time, and will apply to all applications pending at that time if examination has not already been requested.

Accordingly, we recommend that our clients should file an examination request now on any pending Australian patent application, so as to benefit from the current, less stringent, examination regime, and to avoid the predicted increase in the official examination fee.

For further advice, please speak to your regular Nash Matthews contact.