Data Reveals the Fragile Economics of Training Patent Attorneys in the Age of AI

Could the trans-Tasman (Australian and New Zealand) patent attorney profession be standing on a demographic precipice?  Despite the continued resilience of patent filings and a seemingly stable market for professional intellectual property services, the fundamental engine of the profession – its human capital – is barely idling.

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.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession

Patent Filing Trends in 2025 Show Impact of AI and Continued Decline in Listed Firm Share

The Australian and New Zealand patent filing landscape in 2025 was marked by the continuation of established market trends alongside a striking new development that has potentially significant implications for both the patent system and the patent attorney profession.  Total standard patent applications filed in Australia decreased marginally by 0.4% to 30,327, representing the third consecutive year of modest decline following a pandemic-era peak.  New Zealand complete applications fell more substantially, by 4.4% to 5,538.  However, these figures were eclipsed by a dramatic surge in provisional patent filings driven by what appears to be widespread use of generative AI tools by self-represented applicants, a phenomenon that resulted in a near-tripling of self-filed provisional applications.

Market share dynamics continued to evolve in ways that present ongoing challenges for firms within the IPH Limited group.  Independent firms collectively surpassed the 50% filing share threshold for the first time, accounting for 51.7% of Australian patent filings, while IPH's share declined further to 32.7%, down from 35.0% in 2024.  Meanwhile, QANTM IP firms maintained relatively stable positioning at 15.6% filing share under private equity ownership.  This continuing divergence reinforces the conclusion that ownership structure alone cannot explain firm performance, with factors including geographic market exposure, client demographics, and strategic positioning all playing significant roles.

Analysis of the 2025 data reveals a market navigating multiple concurrent trends: declining US-originating applications (down 5.1%), growing Chinese filings (up 13.5%), and the emergence of AI as both a potential disruptor and, paradoxically, a possible source of future work for patent attorneys.

Let’s dive in and look at the data.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Annual patent data, Australia, New Zealand, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession

How Attorney Firms are Benefiting from an Australian Patent Examination Backlog

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 – have been steadily gaining share.  The latest data, presented here, indicates that independent firms have collectively lifted their new application filings from under 9,500 in FY2016 to nearly 15,000 in FY2025, while IPH's filings declined from over 14,000 to under 10,000 over the same period.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that such a dramatic shift in filing volumes should translate into corresponding changes in prosecution revenues within a few years, given the typical 3-5 year lifecycle from filing through examination to acceptance.  However, publicly available financial information, particularly for the listed IPH group, has not shown the revenue declines one might expect from a 30% reduction in new filings.  This apparent paradox raises questions about what is actually happening within the Australian patent prosecution system, and whether current revenue patterns are sustainable or merely a temporary phenomenon masking an inevitable adjustment.

By analysing detailed prosecution event data from IP Australia covering FY2013-25, including filing volumes, examination requests, examination reports, and acceptances across different firm groups, this article reveals a remarkable story. The data shows how factors largely outside the control of attorney firms – particularly IP Australia's examination capacity, backlog management, and recent productivity changes – have temporarily insulated the consolidated groups from the full commercial impact of their declining market share. The findings have significant implications for understanding current industry dynamics and, more critically, for assessing the medium-term prospects of different participants in the Australian patent attorney market.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession, Patent Office

Can You Turn an AI Chatbot into a Patent Drawing Professional?

Unsurprisingly, many of my conversations with fellow patent attorneys over the past couple of years have centred on AI – my work with it, and what it means for patent practice.  My own experience, and that of people I have spoken to, is that full patent drafting is not (yet) a practical application of AI, so patent attorneys are not yet out of a job!  But I believe that there are, increasingly, parts of this task with which AI can provide effective assistance and productivity enhancements.  And while much discussion around AI and intellectual property is directed to high-level policy questions or speculative future scenarios, I'm also interested in what we can do right now.

This week, I decided to experiment with using AI for a task that regularly eats up my time in patent drafting: creating professional flowcharts for computer-implemented inventions.  There are, of course, commercial tools emerging for the automated generation of patent drawings, mostly as part of more comprehensive AI drafting assistance systems.  My specific goal, however, was to see if I could develop a reliable system, using a general-purpose AI chatbot for which I already have a paid subscription (my chatbot-of-choice is Anthropic’s Claude), to go from a plain English algorithm description to a publication-ready, annotated flowchart suitable for a patent specification.  And it turns out (spoiler alert) that the answer is yes. 

What you will see below is a demonstration of the conversion of an algorithm – Euclid's method for finding the greatest common divisor (GCD) – described in everyday language into a professionally annotated flowchart in under five minutes.

I generally use PowerPoint for this kind of work – it is included with my Office 365 subscription, and thus incurs zero marginal cost.  Some people use professional drawing applications, such as Visio, which provide more tools that can be used to speed up the process.  And there are also specialised flowcharting applications available, although these can still be tedious to use for complex algorithms and – more importantly – they don't address the need for professional annotation with reference numerals and leader lines that patent specifications require.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Artificial intelligence, Patent attorney practice, Patent attorney profession, Patent drafting

Patent Filing Trends 2024– Market Share Shifts Continue as Firms Face Ongoing Challenges

The landscape of patent filing activity across Australia and New Zealand underwent continued transformation in 2024, marked by declining total filings and ongoing shifts in market share distribution and firm performance.  Total standard patent applications filed in Australia decreased by 3.4% to 30,442, while New Zealand experienced a more pronounced decline of 7.3% to 6,202 applications.  These trends are set against a backdrop of substantial structural change in the industry, most notably the acquisition of QANTM IP Limited by private equity management company Adamantem Capital in August, leaving IPH Limited as the last publicly listed ownership group standing.

As was the case last year, analysis of filing patterns reveals trends that create challenges for patent attorney firms regardless of their ownership structures.  While direct filings in Australia increased by 7.5% to 9,238, this was more than offset by PCT national phase entries declining by 7.5% to 21,202, suggesting shifting preferences in filing strategies.  Provisional applications showed modest growth of 2.2% to 4,335, marking a second consecutive year of recovery from post-pandemic lows, though still significantly below pre-2019 levels.

A market share analysis presents particularly interesting insights into evolving industry dynamics.  Independent firms collectively increased their share of Australian patent filings to 49.6%, continuing a trajectory of share growth that has seen smaller practices double their collective presence since 2014.  This shift occurred as IPH group firms experienced further decline in collective share to 35.0%, while QANTM IP, under its new private equity ownership, maintained relatively stable positioning at 15.4%.  These changes reflect broader industry trends toward smaller, specialised practices, though the notable declines experienced by larger firms across both independent and group categories suggest that size, as much as ownership structure, continues to be anb influence on client choice.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Annual patent data, Australia, New Zealand, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession

New IP Scam Alert: Fraudsters Now Impersonating Registered Attorneys

In a concerning development, the authority that regulates the Australian and New Zealand IP professions, the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board (TTIPAB), has warned attorneys about an ongoing scam involving the impersonation of registered IP attorneys to defraud IP rights owners.  Specifically, the TTIPAB has warned that ‘IP Australia became aware of a scam that is currently circulating, where applicants are pressured into filing a trade mark via emails fraudulently purporting to be from a well-known registered attorney.’  Of course, this type of scam could easily target any type of IP right. The threat is particularly worrying because it undermines one of the traditional safeguards against IP-related scams – checking whether correspondence comes from a registered attorney.

While I have not seen the emails in question, it appears that what makes this new scam especially disturbing is that the fraudsters are not simply creating fictitious firms, attorneys, or official-sounding registration authorities, but are actually impersonating a real registered attorney.  Since the Register of Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys is publicly accessible, scammers can easily obtain legitimate attorney details to make their communications appear more credible.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, Fraud, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession, Scams

Large vs Small, Group Ownership vs Independent – What Factors Influenced Firms’ Patent Filing Share in 2023?

As I recently reported, Australian patent filings in 2023 fell slightly, by 2.4%, over the previous year.  This implies, of course, that patent attorneys filing applications on behalf of domestic and foreign clients should, overall, also have experienced a similar decline new filings.  But, of course, individual firms fared differently in the competition for this work.  Looking at new complete (i.e. non-provisional) patent filings across Australia and New Zealand, declines were experienced by all firms held within the two groups owned by Australian Securities Exchange listed entities IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) and QANTM IP Limited (ASX:QIP).  IPH firms Spruson & Ferguson, Griffith Hack, AJ Park, and Pizzeys filings declined by 5.0%, 3.6%, 14.9% and 6.9% respectively,  QANTM IP firms Davies Collison Cave and FPA Patent Attorneys filings declined by 13.2% and 8.8% respectively. 

But it was not only the listed group firms that saw declines in excess of the 2.4% average.  Of the leading ten firms, only Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick (+3.1%) and Madderns (+10.3%) achieved growth in filing numbers.  While ownership structure is one possible factor influencing client choice, firm size (irrespective of ownership) appears also to be (negatively) correlated with filing growth.  Additionally, the number of new patent filings fell significantly in New Zealand, which disproportionately impacted those trans-Tasman firms – most notably A J Park – with a higher exposure to the market for New Zealand patent services.

Overall, the share of Australian patent filings has continued to shift generally away from larger and/or listed group firms in favour of smaller independent firms.  But even this trend is not simple to unpack.  For many years now, IPH firms have shed filing share, while the QANTM IP firms have held fairly steady, although they experienced a notable decline in share in 2023.  On the other hand, the top six independent firms that have been in continuous operation since IPH initially listed in 2014 have collectively gained 6.3% filing share over this period.  However, bigger gains have been made by the numerous small (i.e. employing fewer than 10 patent attorneys), independent, practices that account for just over half of the trans-Tasman patent attorneys working in private practice.  There are over 150 such practices, including the two rapidly-growing recent entrants RnB IP and GLMR, which have collectively gained 11.8% filing share since 2014, and now account for nearly 23% of all Australian complete patent filings.

Let’s look at the numbers in more detail.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Annual patent data, Australia, New Zealand, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession

The Major Australian Client at the Centre of David and Goliath Legal Battle Between Patent Attorney Firms

As some readers may be aware (I have previously mentioned it only in passing) a firm in the IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) group – the market cap of which is A$1.56B at publication – is once again taking legal action against a recently-established firm and its founders, all of whom are former employees of Spruson & Ferguson (‘S&F’).  Earlier, IPH group firm Pizzeys had sued RnB IP and its two founders – formerly partners in Pizzeys at the  time of its acquisition by IPH – for alleged breach of non-compete, non-dealing, and/or non-solicitation restraints that were included in their employment contracts.  That dispute ultimately settled out of court and was finalised prior to trial, in September 2022, so we did not get the benefit of judicial consideration of whether the contractual restraints were reasonable and/or enforceable.

The startup firm on this occasion is GLMR, founded by Edward Genocchio (‘G’), Michelle Lee (‘L’), David Müller-Wiesner (‘M’) and Simon Reynolds (‘R’).  The firm was also, for a short period, known as LMW IP, which was established by ‘L’ and ‘M’ before they were joined by ‘G’ and ‘R’.  The action taken thus far against GLMR and its founders by S&F is an application to the Federal Court of Australia for preliminary discovery (case no. NSD6/2023), in which the GLMR parties are identified as prospective respondents in a potential future action.  This is the same strategy previously employed by Pizzeys against RnB IP.  In the RnB case, the preliminary application was contested, and resulted in a published decision of Justice Jagot ordering discovery.  In the present case, however, it appears that the parties have reached agreement on scope of discovery, with the corresponding orders made by a Registrar of the court (see orders made on 23 October 2023 [PDF, 135kB]).  While preliminary discovery was initially due by 29 November 2023, this has been extended by further orders to 5.00pm on 16 February 2024.

The discovery orders provide some insight into the nature of S&F’s prospective case against GLMR.  An impression of the impact that GLMR has had on S&F’s patent business can also be discerned from the public records of the Australian Patent Office.  In this article, I take a look at these two aspects of the matter.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession

Disciplinary Decision Against Registered Attorney a Reminder of the Importance of Clear Communication and Record Keeping

Back in July, the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Disciplinary Tribunal (‘the Tribunal’) issued a decision in relation to a complaint about a registered attorney (‘the attorney’) by a client (‘the client’) in response to which the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board (TTIPAB, a.k.a. ‘the Board’) commenced disciplinary proceedings, bringing nine charges against the attorney.  The full decision of the Tribunal can be found here [PDF, 364kB], while a separate ruling on the penalties to be applied can be found here [PDF, 223kB].  This decision is a ‘first’ in a couple of respects.  It is the first time the Tribunal has sat as a three-member panel (rather than a single decision-maker).  It is also the first time that charges have been brought against an attorney under the Code of Conduct for Trans-Tasman Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys 2018 (‘Code of Conduct’’).  Reference to specific provisions of the Code of Conduct has resulted in charges having a clearer basis and greater precision than may have been the case in past disciplinary proceedings.

There are, in this decision, three important messages – or, one would hope, reminders – for registered trans-Tasman patent attorneys.

First, an attorney’s obligation to ‘disclose to a client all information of which the registered attorney is aware that is materially relevant to work being undertaken for the client’ (paragraph 17 of the Code of Conduct) extends to information about the state of the law.  In this case, the attorney was obliged to inform the client about the difficulties inherent in obtaining patents for business methods (whether or not implemented using computer technology), and about the requirement to provide a sufficient disclosure of a claimed invention along with the potential adverse consequences of failing to do so.  The attorney was found to have satisfied the first of these two obligations, but not the second.

Second, an attorney’s obligation to ‘have appropriate competency’ and to carry out work that they undertake ‘with due skill and care’ (paragraph 14 of the Code of Conduct) includes ‘adequately and properly advising’ a client of anticipated legal risks or difficulties that may be encountered in obtaining IP rights.  Closely related to the first point above, in this case the attorney was obliged to properly advise the client of the significant risk that a patent application directed to a business method would be refused, and of the risks associated with failing to include a sufficient disclosure of a claimed invention in a patent application.  Here, the attorney was found to have satisfied neither of these two obligations.

Third, an attorney’s obligation to ‘maintain standards of professional practice as a patent attorney … that are courteous, ethical and well-informed’ (sub-paragraph 13(2) of the Code of Conduct) encompasses appropriate record keeping.  In this case, the attorney was obliged to keep adequate documentation of the advice that had been provided to the client, whether or not that advice was given in writing.  The attorney was found to have failed in this respect with regard to advice provided in relation to two patent specifications prepared on behalf of the client.

I recommend that all registered and prospective trans-Tasman patent attorneys read the full decision.  It is a credit to the profession that disciplinary proceedings are few and far between, but this makes the rare decisions that we do have all the more important.  What follows is my own overview and comments.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession, Professional conduct

IPH Sues Again, as Competition Hots Up for Australian and New Zealand Patent Filings in 2022

As I recently reported, Australian (standard) patent filings in 2022 remained close to the historic highs of the previous year.  This implies, of course, that patent attorneys filing applications on behalf of domestic and foreign clients should, overall, also have maintained high numbers of new filings.  But, of course, individual firms fared differently in the competition for this work.  Looking at total new standard patent filings across Australia and New Zealand, gains were made by the two firms owned by QANTM IP Limited (ASX:QIP), namely Davies Collison Cave (up by 5.7% to 4094 applications) and FPA Patent Attorneys (up by 3.9% to 2444 applications, after incorporating filings originally made by Cotters).  Other firms to make notable gains, in terms of both filing numbers and percentage growth, were FB Rice (up by 7.6% to 3697 applications), Wrays (up by 16.2% to 1380 applications) and RnB IP (up by 10.5% to 864 applications).  Firms that also made good percentage gains, albeit off a lower base of filings, included Allens (6.0%), Michael Buck IP (6.6%), Adams Pluck (22.6%), Dentons (30.7%) and Collison & Co (18.7%).

On the other side of the ledger, Madderns’ filings fell by 13.5%, to 801 applications.  Within the group of firms owned by IPH Limited (ASX:IPH), Spruson & Ferguson, AJ Park and Pizzeys all saw declines in new filings (by 7.9%, 2.8% and 2.9% respectively), while Griffith Hack held steady with a small (0.6%) increase in filings.  IPH has just reported its half-year financial results (for July-December 2022) [PDF 255kB], and while the news was positive for the group overall – a 24% uplift in underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to A$80.4 million – like-for-like EBITDA for the Australian and New Zealand IP businesses declined by 6%.  IPH has blamed this partly on travel expenses, with activity increasing following the end of COVID-related travel restrictions.  But it is apparent that a decline in Australian and New Zealand patent filings has also contributed. 

In related news from the IPH group, while Pizzeys settled its legal dispute with RnB IP late last year, Spruson & Ferguson recently commenced similar proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia (case no. NSD6/2023) against upstart firm GLMR and its four principals.  And, just as the founders of RnB IP were former employees of Pizzeys, the principals of GLMR are all former employees of Spruson and Ferguson.  Through its Federal Court action, Sprusons is seeking an order for preliminary discovery – presumably fishing for evidence of GLMR’s contact with Sprusons’ clients – which is precisely how Pizzeys commenced its action against RnB IP in June 2019.  To date, GLMR has filed just 194 applications (with the earliest being in February 2022).  However, it has also taken over responsibility for at least 629 applications that were previously filed and/or managed by Spruson & Ferguson.  It is early days yet, but we can perhaps expect to see this dispute take much the same course as Pizzeys v RnB IP.

Let’s have a look at the numbers in more detail.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Annual patent data, Australia, New Zealand, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession

Will AI Chatbots Make Patent Attorneys Obsolete? (No, They Won’t)

If you have any interest at all in technology, and possibly even if you do not, it is very likely that over the past few weeks you have read or heard something about OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, which was released for public testing on 30 November 2022.  OpenAI describes itself as ‘an AI research and deployment company’ with a mission ‘to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.’  It counts Microsoft as a major sponsor, to the tune of a US$1 billion investment that gives OpenAI access to enormous computing resources, in exchange for which Microsoft gains privileged access to OpenAI’s breakthroughs.  ChatGPT’s conversational and question-answering skills are – superficially, at least – impressive.  Naturally, this has led some breathless commentators to suggest that we are on the verge of seeing various professional jobs, including those of lawyers, being replaced by AI machines.  But is ChatGPT really that good, or are people merely being blinded to its limitations by the fact that it is undeniably much better than anything they have seen before?

If language models like ChatGPT are going to replace professional advisors, such as lawyers and patent attorneys, then they will need to demonstrate the standards of competence and reliability (not to mention ethical conduct and responsibility) that the public expects from such advisors.  As we shall see, my experiments with ChatGPT demonstrate that it is nowhere near achieving these standards.  Indeed, there is a serious question as to whether it even represents a viable approach to developing AI with such capabilities.  In any event, there are no signs that machines will be replacing professional advisors in the foreseeable future.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Artificial intelligence, DABUS, Patent attorney profession

Recent Trends in the Trans-Tasman Patent Attorney Profession

As regular readers of this blog – and watchers of the Australasian patent attorney profession in general – are well-aware, we have witnessed over recent years a significant upheaval in the profession, including three public listings of attorney firm groups and a series of acquisitions and mergers.  The result of this (so far) is that there are now two publicly-listed holding companies – IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) and QANTM IP Limited (ASX:QIP) – which between them own six mid-to-large-sized firms across Australia and New Zealand, collectively employing (as of the beginning of September 2022) just over 20 per cent of all registered trans-Tasman patent attorneys.  The consolidation of this many attorneys under just two ownership groups has naturally led to some concerns about a reduction in competition.  However, as I reported earlier this year, patent filing data in fact shows that a greater proportion of Australian patent applications are now being filed by a larger number of smaller firms than was the case a decade ago, prior to the establishment and rise of the listed group ownership model.

Since January 2018 I have been keeping records of the employment of registered trans-Tasman patent attorneys, as reflected in the public Register maintained by the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board (TTIPAB).  (For readers who have not checked lately, the TTIPAB recently revamped its website, and the new and improved version of the searchable Register can be found here.)  In this article I use this data to present some updated trends in the profession over the past four years and nine months.

Key takeaway points from the analysis are that, since the beginning of 2018:

1. the total number of registered patent attorneys has grown by just 4.2%, from 1023 to 1066;
2. the number of attorneys providing for-fee services to clients through identifiable firms or solo practices (regardless of ownership structure) has barely changed, and now sits at 753, compared with 768 in January 2018;
3. the number of attorneys employed in corporate roles (e.g. in-house counsel) has grown, but so too has the number that are unemployed, not employed in traditional patent attorney roles in Australia or New Zealand, or whose current employment status cannot be determined from information on the Register;
4. the proportion of attorneys employed by listed group firms – mostly within the IPH group – has declined significantly to reach the current figure of 20%, down from 27% in January 2018;
5. nearly 60 new practices have emerged – more than half of them prior to July 2019 – with over 90 attorneys now working within firms or solo practices that did not exist prior to 2018; and
6. the overall number of identifiable firms/practices offering for-fee patent attorney services – which is one possible measure of the level of competition in the market – has increased by around 7%.

So let’s dive into the details, and some charts.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession

Privately-Held Attorney Firms Have Built Filing Share Over the Past Decade, Thanks Largely to IPH!

While some doomsayers predicted that the rise of publicly listed groups of patent attorney firms would lead to terrible problems, including a reduction of competition, in the Australasian market for IP services, the sky has yet to actually fall.  After a few years of upheaval in the profession, two listed holding companies – IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) and QANTM IP Limited (ASX:QIP) – have established themselves, while the number of mid-sized firms has fallen slightly, as a result of acquisitions and mergers within the listed groups. 

Despite this, however, there is no evidence of any lessening of competition.  On the contrary, patent filing data shows that IPH’s strategies, in particular, have resulted in an increase in the share of new applications being handled by non-IPH, independent, firms.  Indeed, in the present financial year, a greater proportion of Australian patent applications have been filed by smaller independent firms than was the case a decade ago.

How has this happened?  Based on the data, I speculate that IPH’s strategies of acquisitions and mergers have resulted in its stable of firms becoming generally smaller – in the sense that they now collectively employ fewer attorneys than before acquisition – but also more efficient.  They can therefore be more profitable, despite attracting a smaller share of new filings.  Meanwhile, many of the attorneys who have left the IPH group firms have rejoined the independent sector, either as employees of established firms, or in a number of cases by establishing their own new firms.  The net effect is that IPH’s overall share of filings has risen – although by less than would have been the case if the firms it acquired had maintained their own individual shares – while the share of filings going to new and established firms in the independent sector has also risen.

As a result, rather than lessening competition, the rise of the listed groups may have strengthened the viability of many existing independent firms, while also contributing to the successful formation of a number of new independent firms.  It seems counter-intuitive, but that is what the data tells us is happening.  Of course, these gains have not come from nowhere, and it is probably fair to say that the ‘losers’ have been the firms, such as Fisher Adams Kelly, Callinans, Cullens, Watermark, Baldwins, and Shelston IP, that have been acquired and ‘integrated’ out of existence.

In this article, I will present the data that underlies my speculation.  In particular, I have analysed the share of Australian standard patent application filings by firms over the past decade (i.e. since before the public listings), to evaluate the relative performance of firms that are now incorporated into the listed groups, before and after acquisition, as against that of independent firms and attorneys.  You can decide for yourself whether you agree with my conclusions.  I would welcome any thoughts, in agreement or otherwise, in the comments.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession

Attorney Code of Conduct Passes ‘Health Check’ with Flying Colours

The Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board (TTIPAB) has published a report, and its response, on a Health Check of the Code of Conduct for Trans-Tasman Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys 2018 [PDF, 2.05MB].  The Report was prepared by Professor Andrew Christie, who was commissioned by the Board to conduct the review, commencing in July 2021.  The ‘health check’ covers not only the Code of Conduct, which is a statutory instrument by which all registered patent and trade marks attorneys are bound, but also the Guidelines to the Code of Conduct [PDF, 95kB].  The Guidelines are non-binding and are intended to assist people to understand the Code and the conduct it covers.  The purpose  of the review was to confirm whether the Code was working as intended, and to identify any improvements or clarification to the Code and Guidelines.  The review process included conducting structured interviews with 26 stakeholders (attorneys, general counsel of listed groups, representatives of attorney professional associations, and clients).  The interview questions were based on an analysis of issues raised by complaints made to the Board over the past few years.

The headline outcome of the ‘health check’ is that no amendments to the Code of Conduct were found to be necessary.  More particularly, Professor Christie concluded that the Code ‘has no major deficiencies, and there are no major problems with its provisions’.  He found, however, that ‘there is significant scope to provide more guidance on the application of the Code’s provisions by enhancement of the Guidelines.’  The Board has accepted a number of recommendations for specific improvements to the Guidelines.

Other key observations of the Report include:

1. most stakeholders have a satisfactory awareness and understanding of the Code, and of the Board, but there is scope for improvement among junior attorneys and clients that do not have a registered attorney on staff;
2. firms within the two publicly listed ownership groups provide appropriate disclosure to clients of their group membership, however individual firms (as opposed to the holding companies) need to improve the clarity with which they disclose the identities of other firms within their group;
3. the evidence is that firms within ownership groups act independently from other members of their group in the provision of attorney professional services, as required under the Code;
4. there is no basis to believe that attorneys in ownership group firms are in breach of their core obligations under the Code (i.e. to place following the law, and the interests of clients, the public and the profession, ahead of other considerations, including the interests of shareholders);
5. clients of firms in ownership groups are being appropriately informed when their consent is required for firms within the same ownership group to act on opposing sides in adversarial matters; and
6. some dissatisfaction with the Board’s complaint handling process has been identified within the profession.

The Board has identified and responded to 34 recommendations in the Report.  Ten of these are recommendations for no action to be taken, which the Board has merely ‘noted’ (there being nothing for it to do).  Of the remainder, the Board has ‘accepted’ 17 recommendations for enhancements to the Guidelines.  The Board has also ‘noted’ six substantive recommendations, where it recognises that a relevant issues has been raised, but proposes to pursue a different course from that which has been recommended.  Finally, there is one recommendation, relating to specific circumstances around potential conflicts of interest, that the Board has ‘not accepted’ because of concerns that it ‘would introduce unnecessary complexity and ambiguity’ to the Code.

I do not intend to go through every recommendation in detail – anybody who is that interested (which should include all registered attorneys) can read the Report and Response!  However, I would like to highlight the points that caught my attention, and add a little of my own commentary.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, Code of Conduct, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession

Who Were The Leading Australian Patent Prosecution Firms in 2021?

With significant increases in both standard and (especially) innovation patent applications, 2021 should have been a bumper year for patent attorneys operating in Australia.  And although that was true overall, the benefits were not uniformly distributed.  While some smaller firms experienced gains in filing numbers well above the overall growth rate, a number of larger firms within the publicly-listed ownership groups struggled to keep pace.  Spruson & Ferguson remained the biggest filer of new applications – particularly following integration of the Shelston IP business – but achieved virtually no overall growth in new filings.  The number of applications filed by third-placed Griffith Hack actually fell in 2021, with the firm narrowly avoiding falling behind fourth-placed FB Rice.

Having a focus on incoming work from foreign applicants, Spruson & Ferguson filed only marginally more new standard patent applications on behalf of Australian residents than its closest competitors, Davies Collison Cave and Griffith Hack.  About half of all filings handled by Spruson & Ferguson originated in the US, slightly above the overall proportion of 45% Australian standard applications by US applicants.  A handful of firms – particularly RnB IP, Pizzeys, and FPA Patent Attorneys – rely far more heavily on US-originating work, while Madderns is notable for handling a higher proportion of filings from China than from the US.

Looking beyond filings to ongoing patent prosecution work, Spruson & Ferguson was the leader in 2021, by a large margin.  Generally speaking, firms with larger numbers of filings over the previous few years had more prosecution work in 2021, which was an advantage for Spruson & Ferguson and Griffith Hack despite their failure to keep pace with their competitors in terms of growth in new filings.  The flip side of this, of course, is that relatively lower filing numbers in 2021 will result in less prosecution work over the coming years.

Read on for all the details.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Annual patent data, Australia, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession

It’s Farewell to Shelston IP, as IPH Executes Another ‘Integration’

The corporate behemoth that is IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) – which at close on 10 September 2021 had a market capitalisation of A$2.00 billion, and was trading at a near-all-time-high of A$9.270 – has, through a series of acquisitions and ‘integrations’, brought about the demise of a number of well-known names in the Australasian IP firmament.  Fisher Adams Kelly, Callinans, Cullens, Watermark and Baldwins are all brands that, until not so long ago, were familiar to anyone with an interest in the IP services market, but which no longer exist.  And on 8 September 2021, IPH announced [PDF, 98kB] that Shelston IP is next in line.  Shelston IP will be integrated with Spruson & Ferguson Australia, with the combined firm operating under the Spruson & Ferguson brand from 1 November 2021, at which time the Shelston IP brand will be retired.  Full systems integration is expected to occur in December 2021.

Ironically, at the time of writing, the ‘About us’ page (Wayback Machine archive, for posterity) on the Shelston IP web site summarises the firm’s history as follows:

Shelston IP has provided excellence in intellectual property for over 160 years. Throughout this time we have developed deep relationships with our clients including with some of the world’s most recognisable companies; relationships that span more than fifty years. Like our clients we never stand still and have innovated, grown and aligned our business for success ensuring we will still be here in another 100 years.

Sadly, this is not to be, and many (me included) will be sad to see the demise of yet another firm with such a long history.  But IPH – unlike Xenith IP Group Limited, the listed entity that Shelston IP itself established and which went on to own Watermark and Griffith Hack before being acquired by IPH – has been uncompromising in its determination to generate greater efficiencies and profitability from its stable of firms.  And while IPH is not without critics, both within and outside the profession, it is no mean feat to build a A$2 billion company.  By my estimation, this now makes IPH large enough for inclusion in the ASX 200 index.  Love it or hate it, according to established financial metrics, IPH is a hugely successful enterprise.

I have taken a look at some of the data on changes in the number of patent attorneys at firms within the IPH group over the past 18 months or so, as well as the group’s patent filing numbers over the past financial year, to try to get a sense of where the IPH businesses may be heading.  I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with IPH CEO, Dr Andrew Blattman, on Friday 10 September 2021.  In what follows, I will present a few of my observations, along with relevant comments from my discussion with Dr Blattman.

Dr Blattman is, of course, the CEO of a listed company, and he has obligations to shareholders and the market that may limit what he can say publicly, and which at the same time constrain him from misleading the market in any way.  Not everyone (including me) will agree with everything he says.  However, I have done my best to accurately report his comments without distorting or misrepresenting his views.  (I have used the blockquote style when reporting Dr Blattman’s comments to clearly differentiate them from my opinions and commentary, although it will be obvious from the context that they are not exact quotes.)  I am not trying to engage in hard-hitting journalism here, just to be a source of information and opinion.  And please keep in mind, if you choose to engage through the comments section at the end, that the High Court has just confirmed that I am legally responsible for any defamatory content you may post!

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, Patent attorney profession

The Leading Firms for Australian Patent Filings in Financial Year 2021

It is common to summarise patent filing numbers over calendar years – back in January I reported on various filing statistics for 2020, and IP Australia did likewise in April.  For most Australian businesses, however – including patent attorney firms – the more important reporting period is the financial year ending on the 30^th of June.  It is therefore interesting to look at patent filing numbers over the 12 month period commencing at the beginning of July, overall and for individual firms.  In this article I will report on filing performance in the 2021 financial year (‘FY21’), which ran from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, as compared with the previous (and, to some extent, earlier) financial year.

Surprisingly, despite the global pandemic, and a decline in filings over the 2020 calendar year, the number of Australian standard patent applications filed in FY21 grew by 3.6% over FY20, largely due to a very strong first six months of 2021.  Innovation patent applications surged ridiculously, to more than three times their numbers in FY20, for reasons that have nothing to do with either the pandemic, or a genuine interest by most applicants in obtaining enforceable rights.  Unfortunately for the health of the Australian innovation ecosystem (and the patent attorneys that support it), filings of new provisional applications declined by nearly 5% in FY21.

The leading firms for patent filings in FY21 were mostly the well-known names you would expect to see, although a couple of smaller firms have slipped into the top 20 on the strength of large numbers of innovation patent filings, primarily made on behalf of Chinese applicants.  The benefit of the growth in standard applications has not been shared equally, with a couple of big name firms experiencing a decline in new filings, while others did much better than the overall 3.6% growth rate.

I have also looked at the numbers of some key prosecution events – namely new examination requests, responses to examination reports, and acceptances – over the past few financial years.  These indicate that the overall prosecution workload increased slightly in FY21, ensuring that patent attorneys (and examiners) were kept busy with the examination of earlier-filed applications, despite the ongoing pandemic.  Strong numbers of examination requests filed in FY21 suggest that this work will continue to flow into, and beyond, the current financial year.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession

Is Corporatision Creating a ‘Brain Drain’ in the Australasian Patent Attorney Profession, or is it Just Slick Marketing?

An article appeared on the Lexology legal news service in the past week that riled me a little – not least because it mentions my name and (in my view) misrepresents something that I wrote a few months ago.  For those who may be unfamiliar with Lexology, it is a service that aggregates content from legal and attorney firms, and other service providers, creating a searchable archive and delivering tailored email bulletins to subscribers.  It is free to subscribe and read, but the firms that provide all the content pay handsomely for the privilege of being aggregated and distributed.  In other words, it is not so much a ‘news’ service for readers as it is a marketing service for the contributing firms.  Most of the content is originally published on the firms’ web sites, from which it is automatically picked up (‘ingested’) by Lexology. 

While many of the articles appearing on the Lexology site are useful and informative – e.g. reports of the latest legal developments in various jurisdictions served by the contributing firms – some are pure marketing.  The piece that has so irked me falls, in my opinion, into the latter category.

The article in question is entitled ‘The brain drain: why are senior patent attorneys leaving?’  Authorship is attributed to James & Wells partners Ceri Wells and Adam Luxton.  Wells is one of the firm’s founders, while Luxton recently joined the firm having previously worked for Spruson & Ferguson – a firm owned by listed holding company IPH Limited (ASX:IPH).  Lexology picked the article up from James & Wells’ website, although that was not its first outing – it was originally published as a sponsored article in Australasian Lawyer [PDF 1.04MB]. 

Never let it be said, then, that James & Wells has not extracted maximum value from the piece, which bears all the hallmarks of having been written not by Wells and Luxton themselves, but rather by a marketing professional.  It takes the classic public relations form of ostensibly objective reporting, interspersed with quoted and paraphrased comments from Wells and Luxton in support of the article’s main theses, which are that:

1. there has been an ‘exodus of senior patent attorneys from formerly private firms’ because of ‘corporatisation’, and the acquisition and merger strategies of the listed holding companies IPH Limited and QANTM IP Limited (ASX:QIP);
2. as a result, those firms are losing the benefit of these senior practitioners’ experience, and they are ‘being replaced by younger people with a lot less experience’ who are ‘missing out on the mentorship they need at that point in their career’;
3. this may lead to junior attorneys feeling ‘overworked and stressed’;
4. practitioners in ‘corporatised’ firms may lack the autonomy and discretion to keep clients ‘at the forefront’ and to build strong relationships ‘based on trust and respect’; and
5. established firms now owned within corporate groups are no longer able to guarantee clients that ‘whoever you engaged in that organisation would be able to deliver’.

Overall, the tenor of the article is simply that ‘corporatised firms = bad’ whereas ‘traditional privately held, partnership type models (like James & Wells) = good’.  Perhaps it feels plausible that this might be so, and doubtless there are people around who will attest, anecdotally, to some experience that supports the argument.

I am just not persuaded that it is true, or that having firms going around claiming that it is are doing the Australasian profession any favours.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, New Zealand, Patent attorney profession

While One IPH Firm Sues Former Partners, 20% of Patent Attorneys Jump Ship from Another

On 14 December 2020, Pizzeys Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys – a firm in the stable owned by listed company IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) – filed suit in the Federal Court of Australia against former Pizzeys principals William Bennett and Martin Richardson, along with the new firm they have established, RnB IP (collectively ‘RnB’).  The lawsuit alleges that Bennett and Richardson lured lucrative US law firm clients away from Pizzeys, in breach of non-compete, non-dealing, and/or non-solicitation restraints that were included in their employment contracts subsequent to the acquisition of Pizzeys by IPH.

This lawsuit has been a long time coming, after Pizzeys was awarded preliminary discovery back in December 2019.  The documents required to be produced by William Bennett following that decision included communications with Martin Richardson, marketing plans, and communications with prospective clients, relating to the establishment of RnB IP.  I believe that discovery was provided early in 2020, and it is unclear why it has taken Pizzeys so long to decide to commence proceedings against RnB.  Perhaps they would blame the pandemic?

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the IPH group, there appears to have been a recent exodus of patent attorneys from Griffith Hack.  In December 2020, there were 48 patent attorneys recorded on the Register maintained by the Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board (TTIPAB) as being employed by Griffith Hack, but only 37 of these were still listed on the firm’s web site.  I am aware that at least one of these was a departure earlier in 2020, but my understanding is that most are recent resignations where staff are currently on ‘gardening leave’, or otherwise temporarily restrained from commencing new employment (and thus updating their registration details). 

These numbers represent a loss of about 20% of registered patent attorneys from Griffith Hack over a short period of time, suggesting a significant level of dissatisfaction among the firm’s professional staff.  Whether this dates back to life under the ownership of Xenith IP (which acquired Griffith Hack in 2017), or is a consequence of the more recent management of IPH (which acquired Xenith in 2019) is unclear.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, Patent attorney profession

COVID Update – October Filings Down, as Pandemic Pain not Shared Equally Among Attorney Firms

Last month I reported that, against the trend of 2020, September was a busy month for Australian patent filings, with standard applications up by 8.1% on the same month in 2019.  (In fact, following more recent additions and corrections in IP Australia’s records, the increase is even higher, at 9.2%.)  But, sadly, any optimism this might have generated was short-lived, with October filings down by 7.9% on last year.  Numbers of new filings originating in Australia, the US, Japan, and Europe were all substantially lower than in October 2019, although applications from China once again bucked the trend.  Filings from all other countries were comparable to 2019, down by just 0.7%.

Counted at the end of October, Chinese applicants have filed 1822 Australian standard patent applications during 2020, just 6% behind Australian applicants at 1937.  This compares with 1410 applications filed by Chinese applicants at the same time in 2019.  Most of these gains have come in the second half of the year, with monthly filings from China being substantially higher than during 2019 in every month since June.  If this trend continues for the final two months of the year, Chinese residents will surpass Australians for the first time as the second largest users of the Australian patent system after the US.

Chinese applicants also continued to make ridiculously high use of the innovation patent system, reflecting the effect of subsidies back in China, rather than any inherent value of the innovation patents themselves.  By the end of October, Chinese residents had filed 1719 innovation patent applications, compared with just 332 at the same point in 2019.  Meanwhile, Australian residents filed 801 innovation patent applications, with a further 618 coming from the rest of the world combined.  With just nine months remaining until its abolition, the innovation patent system is now looking very much like the laughing stock that it has long been regarded as by some critics.

For the ‘coronavirus-affected’ period from March to October, the number of standard patent applications filed in Australia is 2.4% below the same period last year while provisional filings are down by 3.0% overall.  However, a relatively large number of provisional applications are filed by self-represented applicants, and the decline in professionally prepared and filed provisionals is slightly higher, at 4.4%.

While all of this means fewer standard and provisional filings for the patent attorney profession generally, the pain has not been shared equally.  Indeed, some sectors of the market, and individual firms, have seen growth in their filings compared with 2019, while others have experienced more significant declines.  Very broadly speaking, the best place to be, in terms of 2020 patent filings, is a medium-sized or large privately-held firm, although micro-practices and medium-sized firms within the listed groups have also collectively increased their share of standard patent filings during the pandemic.

 Read full article ► 

Tags: Australia, COVID-19, Patent analytics, Patent attorney profession