Quick bytes

Key Points:

FTA - what does it mean for IP owners?

At this stage, the FTA between the US and Australia has not been publicly released. DFAT’s information sheet on the FTA notes that the laws of the two countries will be harmonised, with changes to the nature of IP protection and also enforcement, but there’s not much detail. We’ll give you a full report on what the FTA means for Australian IP when the text is available - stay posted.

Government to make changes to IP/IT laws

The Federal Government has listed some new bills it’s intending to introduce in the current sitting of Parliament:

• the Copyright Amendment (Indigenous Communal Moral Rights) Bill will introduce a new form of moral rights for indigenous communities in certain copyright works and films.
• the Copyright Amendment (New Rights) Bill will extend current rights or give new ones to directors in their films, performers in their sound recordings, and photographic copyright owners (aligning the term of protection of photographs with that of most other artistic works).
• the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill will finish the implementation of the Government’s response to the Intellectual Property and Competition Review report and the Advisory Council on Industrial Property report on patent enforcement
• the Criminal Code Amendment (Telecommunications Offences and Other Measures) Bill will modernise some offences and create new ones relating to the internet, child pornography, and material inciting suicide.

We haven’t seen copies of these Bills yet, and it’s not clear that any or all of them will even be introduced into Parliament during this session. We’ll keep you posted on further developments.

More inquiries, more reports

It’s been a busy few months for the Government’s Advisory Council on Intellectual Property, with two important inquiries underway. First, it’s looking at the difficult relationship between trade marks, business names, company names and domain names (see any edition of Insights from the past two years for more information!). An Issues Paper has been released, which identifies public confusion over the differences between trade marks and business names, and what rights they come with. Public comment must be in by 15 March.

ACIP has also released a report suggesting changes to IP litigation, such as better processes and more use of expert witnesses in what can be highly technical litigation.