Obviousness a fly in the ointment for Bayer

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Syngenta Crop Protection AG v Bayer Intellectual Property GmbH [2018] APO 19 (9 March 2018) Syngenta has been successful in its opposition to two related Bayer patent applications. The patents relate to an insecticidal composition comprising a synergistically effective combination of one neonicotinoid compound selected from [a number of listed neonicotinoids] and an anthranilamide compound. …
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Patent sufficiency not tested by “undue burden”

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The Full Federal Court has recently considered what level of disclosure is needed in a patent specification in order that it “describes the invention fully” as required by Section (40)(2)(a) of the Patents Act 1990, prior to being amended by the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising The Bar) Act 2012. In Warner-Lambert Company LLC v …
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Patents in the high velocity world of Formula One

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With the Australian Grand Prix returning in March, Melbourne will once again play host to the fastest race cars in the world. For some, the race is the engineering Olympics. An action-packed sporting spectacular, each car on the grid representing decades of hard-fought improvements in material, mechanical, safety and software engineering all of which embodied …
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Virtual marking – you’re on notice to try it

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In many jurisdictions, damages as a remedy for infringement are not available or are reduced where the infringer proves they were an ‘innocent infringer’.  An ‘innocent infringer’ is not aware of the existence of a registered IP right at the time of the infringement and had no reasonable grounds for supposing that the subject matter …
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Australian Government supports phasing out of the innovation patent system

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Today the Australian Government released its response to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Australia’s IP system.  Both the Productivity Commission and the former Advisory Council on Intellectual Property had recommended that the innovation patent system be abolished, a recommendation that the Australian government has supported. An innovation patent requires a lower level of innovation than …
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Australian Government responds to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Australia’s IP system

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The Australian Government has released its response to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into Australia’s IP system.  The report may be found here. The Government has made a number of recommendations across Australia’s intellectual property system.  While the implementation of the recommendations will be some time away, some dramatic changes are proposed.   Perhaps the most significant …
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Federal Court denies patent term extensions for Swiss type claims

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A Full Bench of the Federal Court of Australia has overturned an earlier decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AATA) and ruled that Swiss-style claims relating to pharmaceutical substances produced using recombinant DNA technology are not eligible for patent term extension. The decision in Commissioner of Patents v AbbVie Biotechnology Ltd[1] relates to three Patents …
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The Patent Prosecution Highway gets more traffic

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The European Patent Office (EPO) has commenced a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) three year pilot programme with the Malaysian and Philippines patent offices, starting 1 July 2017. Applicants whose claims have been found allowable by the EPO, the Malaysian or Philippines patent offices can now request accelerated processing of their corresponding application at the other …
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