A recent appeal decision by a Full Bench of the Federal Court of Australia has clarified what is meant by the requirement for a patent specification to be framed with ‘reasonable skill and knowledge’, finding that this is a collective responsibility that arises among everybody involved, including inventors, patent attorneys, and any other corporate managers or intermediaries. Under Australian law, this requirement arises in relation to the effect of amendments on the rights of a patentee. In particular, a patent is only enforceable during the period prior to making an amendment if the specification without the amendment was ‘framed in good faith and with reasonable skill and knowledge’.This decision should be of interest not only to Australian patent attorneys, but to patent professionals globally who are involved in drafting specifications that may ultimately be filed in Australia, and result in the grant of Australian patents. It confirms that responsibility for ‘framing’ a specification with ‘reasonable skill and knowledge’ does not lie solely – or even primarily – with the person tasked with actually drafting the specification, but is shared between all those involved in the process.
A competent patent attorney might be expected to have reasonable knowledge of the law and practices relating to the drafting of patent specifications, and to make reasonable efforts to obtain necessary information from a client. However, the client has a key role to play in ensuring that the patent attorney is properly instructed. And while the patent attorney is not necessarily expected to share the level of domain-specific technical expertise of an inventor, the specification will nonetheless be assumed to have been drafted with the benefit of the client’s knowledge of the invention, including knowledge that the client reasonably should be taken to have had, in all of the relevant circumstances. Ensuring that this is the case is at least as much the responsibility of the client as it is of the patent attorney (or other patent professional) tasked with drafting the specification.
