Australia considers new definition of invention
23 February 2011
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Peter Ollier, Hong Kong
An Australian government committee has recommended updating the country’s Patent Act to change the definition of patentable subject matter
The change would replace the manner of manufacture test, which dates back to England's Statute of Monopolies of 1623 and stayed in Australia's Patents Act when it was last amended in 1990.
"It does seem odd that we continually hark back to this test in an English statute of hundreds of years ago," said Wayne Condon, a partner of Griffith Hack in Melbourne.
The Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) released the report on February 16. Other recommendations include adding a general exclusion from patentability for offensive inventions and adding a statement of objectives to the start of the Patents Act.
The report describes the language of the current Patents Act as obscure and states: "There is a mismatch between the words of the legislation and the approach developed by the courts."
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