The proposal is part of an interim report on post-grant patent enforcement strategies. A final report will be published by the end of 2009.
According to a press release issued by ACIP, the centre would be similar to WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Centre, which will open a branch office in Singapore in January next year.
The report states that “the inability of patent owners to access relatively quick and affordable dispute resolution processes has become a long-standing problem”.
The Courts have been trying to deal with this problem. In 2006 the Federal Court of Australia released proposals to make patent litigation faster and cheaper. In March this year the Court also unveiled a new set of e-discovery rules to reduce the cost of litigation.
The report argues that having a single point of contact for companies wanting to enforce their patents would make it easier “as the options are all laid out and explained in one place”.
The paper recommends that the centre should be located within IP Australia and should work on the basis that the user pays.
Further proposals on the dispute resolution centre include asking IP Australia to establish: a validity and infringement opinion service similar to that established by the UKIPO; a register of experts to provide assessment and mediation services; and a patent tribunal within the IP dispute resolution centre.
The report makes 11 proposals in total. Information on how to provide submissions on the report is available on ACIP’s website.
