I have analysed numbers over recent years from the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys register, and the data reveals a profession that is effectively running on a treadmill. In January 2018, the register recorded 1,003 attorneys. Today, in mid-2026, that number sits at 1,084 (870 in Australia, 214 in New Zealand).
That is a net addition of just 81 practitioners over more than eight years, translating to a sluggish compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of just under 1%. While the profession has managed to register 288 new attorneys since 2018, I found that this influx has been largely offset by a steady rate of retirement: 207 attorneys have departed the register over the same period.
On the surface, a 1% growth rate might simply look like a mature, saturated market. But, when placed in historical context, the situation is concerning. More importantly, it foreshadows a possible existential threat to the profession. If the entry rate of new patent attorneys falls below the rate of senior attrition, the regulatory and commercial ecosystem may stand on shaky ground. And – as always these days – the advancement of AI use within attorney firms threatens to exacerbate this risk.
It has been just over two years since 
The High Court of Australia has denied an application by the Commissioner of Patents for special leave to appeal a decision of the Full Federal Court in which claims to a computer-implemented invention (CII), in the form of an electronic gaming machine (EGM), were found to be patent-eligible in Australia. This brings to an end the long-running dispute over patentability of Aristocrat’s claims, and marks the first time since 1991 (IBM v Commissioner of Patents 
‘AI slop’, defined as ‘low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user’, was named 
The Australian patent attorney profession has been undergoing a significant structural shift over the past decade. The listing of IPH Ltd in November 2014, and its subsequent series of acquisitions and mergers has created a dominant force controlling multiple major firms, while QANTM IP (QIP) -- which was originally publicly listed , but now owned by private equity – has become established as a second consolidated group. These ownership changes were expected to generate economies of scale and competitive advantages, yet the data tells a more complex story. Independent firms – those remaining outside the IPH and QIP consolidated groups – 
My latest analysis of patent filing data for 2024 confirms a shift that has been years in the making – Chinese applicants have finally overtaken Australian residents to become the second largest source of patent applications, behind only the United States. This milestone comes as US filings showed a notable decline of 5.7%, while Chinese applications continued their steady growth with a 7.2% increase over the previous year.
In a concerning development, the authority that regulates the Australian and New Zealand IP professions, the 
The recent Full Federal Court decision in Zoetis Services LLC v Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health USA Inc 
A recent Full Court decision suggests that demonstrating prior art could be ‘reasonably expected to be ascertained’ under the pre-Raising the Bar (RtB) law may be considerably easier than previously thought. But has the pendulum swung too far? In relaxing the evidentiary requirements for establishing that prior art information would have been found by the skilled person, the Full Court may have undermined a safeguard against hindsight analysis that was inherent in the prior law.
While this blog normally focuses on patent matters, occasionally a case comes along that warrants stepping outside my usual lane. The Full Court of the Federal Court’s decision in Killer Queen LLC v Taylor 
A single judge of the Federal Court of Australia, Justice O’Bryan, has granted Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Ltd (‘Aristocrat’) leave to appeal a decision issued back in March this year. In that decision, Justice Burley found that all remaining claims in a group of innovation patents relating to computer-implemented electronic gaming machine (EGM) technology did not define patent-eligible subject matter. The grant of leave opens up an opportunity for Aristocrat to ask the High Court of Australia to untangle the mess that it created back in 2022 when a six-judge panel split 3:3 on whether or not to allow an earlier appeal against a decision of the Full Federal Court relating to the primary claims of the same innovation patents.
Australia has a pre-grant patent opposition system. That is to say, once an application has passed examination and been accepted for potential grant as a patent, there is a period (of three months) during which anybody may oppose the grant. The subsequent opposition proceedings – if they run their full course – consist of a series of evidentiary stages, legal submissions, and an oral hearing, following which the hearing officer (a delegate of the Commissioner of Patents) issues a written decision on the outcome of the opposition. In the final reckoning, the patent application may emerge unscathed, it may be refused, or it may end up being granted subject to narrowing amendments. 
As I recently reported, 
Over the past five years (i.e. since 2019) Korea’s LG Electronics Inc and China’s Huawei Technologies Ltd have consistently placed in the top five applicants for Australian patents. Indeed, for the past four years they were in the leading three. In 2021, 
In 2023 the total number of standard patent applications filed in Australia remained above 30,000 for the third year running, despite a 2.4% drop in filings. This follows a decline of nearly 0.5% in the previous year. However, whereas the decline in new applications in 2022 was due to fewer filings by Australian residents (with a slight increase in foreign-originating applications preventing a larger fall), the drop in 2023 was the result of nearly 800 fewer filings by foreign applicants. As always, a majority of new filings were national phase entries (NPEs) derived from international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). But, for the first time since 2016, the number of PCT NPEs fell – by 3.2% – offset somewhat by a 14% rise in new direct national filings. The number of divisional applications also fell in 2023, by 7.3%.
