IP Australia Offers Assistance to Flood-Affected Customers

Many readers will already be aware of the devastating floods that have affected areas of eastern Australia.  Queensland and northern New South Wales have been the worst hit, however in the past few days flooding has also occurred in parts of western Victoria, eastern South Australia and Tasmania.

The Brisbane central business district has been substantially without power, and effectively closed down, since last Tuesday 11 January 2011.  This has included the Brisbane Post Office, which acts as a receiving office for filings with IP Australia (i.e. relating to patents, trade marks and registered designs).  With the reopening of the Post Office on Monday, 17 January 2011, IP Australia announced the resumption of filing service in Brisbane.

In doing so, it has taken the opportunity to remind its customers (e.g. applicants and agents) of the possibility of obtaining extensions of time to meet deadlines that may have been missed as a result of the floods.

The Australian Patents Act 1990 includes fairly generous provisions for the grant of extensions of time to meet deadlines that were missed due to ‘circumstances beyond the control’ of the person responsible.  Certainly the present floods fall into this category!

As IP Australia further points out in its announcement:

Customers in the affected areas who have been unable to respond to time frames due to circumstances beyond their control can request an extension of time on this basis.  In response to these requests, IP Australia can waive fees related to requests for extensions of time as well as fees associated with the supply of replacement documentation such as deeds and certificates where appropriate.

IP Australia encourages affected customers to contact IP Australia, via the Customer Service Centre (Ph: 1300 651 010 or email: assist@ipaustralia.gov.au) as soon as you are aware a deadline has not been met, or that one is approaching.

While IP Australia has a broad discretion in relation to Australian rights, we would remind applicants pursuing foreign patent rights, including applicants of international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), that the patent offices of other countries may not be so generous.  Laws and regulations relating to extensions of time and.or the restoration of lapsed rights, vary greatly between different countries, and Australia is certainly at the more lenient and compassionate end of the spectrum.

Our advice would be that applicants should endeavour, as far as possible, to avoid missing any deadline that may affect foreign rights.

Anybody wishing to assist in the flood relief efforts may donate to the Red Cross, the Queensland Government’s national flood relief appeal, or any of the numerous other charitable organisations that are coordinating collection and allocation of donated funds, which Google will assist in identifying!

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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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