Patentology Newsbytes

A semi-regular round-up of breaking news, current events and comments too trivial to warrant their own posts.

IN THIS ISSUE…

AusBiotech, Legal Academics &  Australian R & D Review Weigh-In on Gene Patent Debate – IP Australia Christmas Closedown Arrangements – Entries About to Close for 2010/2011 DuPont Innovation Awards – Google to Provide European Patent Translation Service

AUSBIOTECH, LEGAL ACADEMICS AND ARDR WEIGH-IN ON GENE PATENT DEBATE

With the Myriad BRCA gene patent under attack in the Australian Federal Court, a respected television investigative journalism program delivering (largely) a hatchet-job, a Private Members’ Bill seeking  to outlaw patents on biological materials being tabled in the Senate, and a decidedly equivocal Senate Committee Report having been published questioning the validity of ‘gene patents’ (though not going to far as to advocate their express abolition), 2010 has been a year of challenges for biotechnology patents in Australia.

However, while it seems that emotional and alarmist views are more attractive to the mainstream media, the debate is not entirely one-sided.  Australia’s biotechnology organisation, AusBiotech, as issued two recent press releases, Call for clam in gene patent debate and Careful consideration needed before action in gene patent debate, and has also been actively educating and lobbying members of the Australian Parliament, who will ultimately decide the fate of any legislative changes.

Australian legal academics Dianne Nicol (Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania) and David Brennan (Melbourne Law School) wrote an article published in The Age newspaper on 6 December 2010, entitled Balanced measures, not blanket bans, are needed on patenting biotechnology.

And the latest issue of the Australian R & D Review includes a cool-headed summary of the ongoing debate and issues entitled Patent or Not to Patent… (page 35).

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IP AUSTRALIA CHRISTMAS CLOSEDOWN ARRANGEMENTS

IP Australia (the government body encompassing the Patent, Trade Marks and Designs Offices) has issued an Official Notice clarifying the arrangements for the Christmas closedown period.

As in past years, the Canberra Offices themselves will be closed.  However, with the replacement of the sub-offices in each state capital city with 'IP Lodgement Points' at nominated Australia Post Offices it is no longer the case that all possible filing points will be physically closed for business during the Christmas period.

The Notice clarifies that the IP Lodgement Points 'are taken not to be open for business for the purposes of lodging IP documents and/or making IP-related payments from Saturday, 25 December 2010 up to and including Monday, 3 January 2011.'

Any relevant filing deadlines falling within the closedown period will be automatically extended to 4 January 2011.

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DUPONT INNOVATION AWARDS

DuPont (Australia) Limited are searching for commercial innovators for their 2010/2011 innovation awards.  However, time is running out, with entries closing on 16 December 2010.

Award categories for 2010/2011 are:

1. Building Innovation
2. Agriculture & Food Production and Marketing
3. Performance Materials
4. Design for a Sustainable Future
5. Medical and Healthcare
6. CSIRO Young Innovator Award
7. DuPont Chair’s Award
8. People's Choice Award  

For further details, visiti the Awards official website.

 

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GOOGLE TO PROVIDE EUROPEAN PATENT TRANSLATION SERVICE

 

The Associated Press has reported an announcement by Google of an agreement forged with the European Patent Office (EPO) to use its technology to translate patents into 29 European languages, a deal officials hope will smooth the way toward a simplified European patent system after years of infighting.  (Read the story in The Age here.)

 

We wrote previously of the possibility of machine translations being used to address the deadlock with some member states (most notably, but not only, Spain) over attempts to create a pan-European patent without onerous and expensive requirements for high-quality manual translations into all countries' official languages.

 

Machine translations, if sufficiently accurate, may be adequate for most purposes short of actual enforcement.

 

Google's translation technology is based on statistical techniques, like a kind of digital Rosetta Stone. The translation engine is 'trained' to translate between languages by feeding it samples of equivalent documents in two or more languages. According to Wikipedia (so it must be true), Google recently improved its translation capabilities by inputting approximately 200 billion words from United Nations materials to train its system.

While Google does not expect any short-term financial gain from the EPO deal, it will gain access to a vast body of patents already translated into different languages to help improve its translation technology.

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Before You Go…

Thank you for reading this article to the end – I hope you enjoyed it, and found it useful.  Almost every article I post here takes a few hours of my time to research and write, and I have never felt the need to ask for anything in return.

But now – for the first, and perhaps only, time – I am asking for a favour.  If you are a patent attorney, examiner, or other professional who is experienced in reading and interpreting patent claims, I could really use your help with my PhD research.  My project involves applying artificial intelligence to analyse patent claim scope systematically, with the goal of better understanding how different legal and regulatory choices influence the boundaries of patent protection.  But I need data to train my models, and that is where you can potentially assist me.  If every qualified person who reads this request could spare just a couple of hours over the next few weeks, I could gather all the data I need.

The task itself is straightforward and web-based – I am asking participants to compare pairs of patent claims and evaluate their relative scope, using an online application that I have designed and implemented over the past few months.  No special knowledge is required beyond the ability to read and understand patent claims in technical fields with which you are familiar.  You might even find it to be fun!

There is more information on the project website, at claimscopeproject.net.  In particular, you can read:

1. a detailed description of the study, its goals and benefits; and
2. instructions for the use of the online claim comparison application.

Thank you for considering this request!

Mark Summerfield

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