Patent Baristas

Those of you who regularly prosecute patents in Australia will be aware that Australia has a unique approach to inventive step/non-obviousness. Specifically, Australian law differs from international norms in two fairly notable ways:
Firstly, not all prior art references are citable. Rather, in order to be citable, a prior art reference must firstly be [...]

How many times have we woken up to the smell of piping hot coffee? Flowers from the garden? The smell of mud after first rains? The smell of nature? The smell of home-cooked meals. It is small wonder then that perfumes are coveted by us. The smell of citrus, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, exotic fruits and [...]

Eastman’s divestment of its PET business in the EU to Indorama ended up in Delaware federal court as the licensor’s patent infringement action.  Eastman Chemical Company v. AlphaPet Inc. et al. (09-CV-971).  Named as defendants are the Indorama licensees, and affiliates, and a U.S. subsidiary, AlphaPet.
The complaint raises interesting problems about a licensor suing licensees [...]

Many readers of Patent Baristas may have noticed that the site has been “off-line” for a bit.  With my deepest apologies, I have found myself in the midst of a family emergency that is requiring most of my time and leaving little or no time for extras like blogging.  Since the difficulties may be extended [...]

A recent decision of an Australian appeal court concerning a patent for an enantiomer pharmaceutical dealt with matters of patent claim validity and patent term extension. The decision, H Lundbeck A/S v Alphapharm Pty Ltd [2009] FCAFC 70, involves a decision of the Full Federal Court on rehearing an appeal by Alphapharm over an earlier [...]

Today’s article looks at the life and practicalities of the Australian Innovation Patent system.
Filing
An innovation application can also be filed as a Paris Convention application, for example as an application claiming priority from a US provisional or non provisional utility application, or as a stand alone application, thus establishing its own priority date, filing date [...]

India’s pharmaceutical industry caters to about 30% of the world’s generic requirements. Despite its tremendous volume, it has been facing difficult times recently, with the WHO stance on counterfeit drugs, as well as seizure of Indian generic shipments in the EU.
There is some good news now on the turf with the introduction of Bipartisan Biogenerics [...]

Responding to an article about robotic inventors (Science, April 3, 2009), which reports about a robot that actually developed and tested hypotheses regarding certain yeast and discovered new gene sequences, we ask whether robotic “inventions” will ultimately become free to the public without the possibility for patent protection.
American patent law (35 U.S.C. Section 102) says [...]