IP Australia Research Challenges Claims of Country’s Poor Industry-Research Collaboration Record

On 26 April 2017, IP Australia celebrated Alien Day World Intellectual Property Day with the launch of the Australian Intellectual Property Report 2017 (‘IP Report’) and the release of the Intellectual Property Government Open Data (IPGOD) 2017.  The Report includes a summary of latest IP trends and statistics across all IP rights administered by IP Australia (patents, trade marks, registered designs and plant breeder’s rights).  As in previous years, it also presents results from specific research projects undertaken within the Office of the Chief Economist.  This year, IP Australia’s researchers have taken on an often-cited (see, for example, this article from The Australian or this one from InnovationAus.com) statistic that placed Australia last (33^rd out of 33 rated countries) in the OECD for collaboration on innovation between industry and higher education or public research institutions over the 2008-10 period.

The OECD assessment featured in its 2015 Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard, and was based on data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) survey.  That data, in turn, was based upon a survey of Australian businesses conducted in relation to activities in the 2010/11 financial year (the most recent ABS data on ‘Innovation in Australian Business’ is available from its website).  This measure has been criticised as failing to account for the particular nature of the Australian market – having a small number of large universities and research organisations, and a large number of small firms – and of failing to compare apples with apples, given that most of the other OECD nations used measures  based on a European survey not implemented in Australia.

IP Australia’s research takes up that criticism, noting that ‘asking those firms how often they collaborated with a university is likely to under-estimate the totals’.  Instead, it seeks to use an objective, data-driven, measure of collaboration – namely, the incidence of universities co-filing applications for a patents or other IP rights with industry-based partners.  On this measure, Australia ranks 13^th of  35 countries, above average and ahead of many countries that rated very highly in the OECD rankings, such as Finland (first on OECD data), Slovenia (2), Austria (3), Hungary (4), Sweden (5), Germany (7), Norway (8), Denmark (9) and Japan (12).

Personally, I do not believe either set of data.  But at least we now have two different perspectives on measuring collaboration which may encourage policy-makers to view the OECD rankings with the scepticism they deserve!

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Tags: Australia, Patent analytics, Public policy, Public research

CSIRO Scores US$16m Wi-Fi Win Over Cisco

In the most recent decision relating to the CSIRO Wi-Fi patent, a US Federal Court Judge in the Eastern District of Texas has ordered networking equipment manufacturer Cisco Systems, Inc, to pay the Australian research organisation US$16,243,069 (plus interest) in damages for infringements dating back to 2005. 

The bulk of the award relates to 18,073,797 consumer-grade products sold under the Linksys brand (Cisco acquired Linksys in 2003), with the remainder being for 1,471,319 Cisco enterprise products.

The case, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation v Cisco Systems, Inc, Case No. 6:11-cv-343 [PDF, 303kB], is interesting for a number of reasons. 

The judgment is entirely devoted to a determination of damages, based on an assessment of a ‘reasonable royalty rate’, since the parties agreed that liability for infringement, and validity of the patent, were not in dispute.  And although both CSIRO and Cisco had originally demanded a jury trial, in the end they consented to a bench trial (i.e. where the case is heard and decided by a single judge).

Additionally, the dispute has a historical context lacking in CSIRO’s other Wi-Fi litigation.  In 2001, Cisco acquired the Australian start-up, Radiata Communications Pty Ltd, originally established in 1997 by Macquarie University Professor David Skellern and his colleague Neil Weste.  Radiata took a nonexclusive licence to the CSIRO wireless LAN patent with the intention of developing chips implementing the technology (see ‘The Story behind CSIRO’s Wi-Fi Patent “Windfall”’.)

The judgment also addresses issues around CSIRO’s obligations (or not) to licence the patent on ‘reasonable and non-discriminatory’ (RAND) terms, the basis for calculation of royalties (i.e. final product prices, or the value of individual lower-cost components) as well as the usefulness of expert evidence in these kinds of cases.

In the end, CSIRO was largely successful.  Although the final damages award is around half of what it had asked for, it is about fifteen times the amount Cisco argued it should have to pay.  And the court found in favour of CSIRO on almost every other issue that was in dispute.

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Tags: Australia, Licensing, News, Patent litigation, Public research

Government Eviscerates Australian Science & Innovation Funding

Last Tuesday evening, Treasurer Joe Hockey handed down the first budget to be delivered by the current Australian Government.  We were warned that it would be tough, and that the Government needed to find billions of dollars in savings in order to bring the budget back into surplus over the next few years.  But I had hoped, nonetheless, that it would at least ensure the country’s ongoing investment in key science, innovation, technology and commercialisation programs, to build the expertise, skills and industries that will be most important globally throughout the coming years and decades.

Unfortunately, it seems that one of the Federal Government’s strategies in its 2014 budget is to mortgage the country’s long-term future to produce a better balance sheet in the near-term.

In my view, the Liberal/National Party Coalition Government is selling out Australian science, technology, innovation and creativity.  We will surely come to regret the loss of opportunities, over the coming years, for this country to develop and grow intellectual capital and technological skills.

The LNP government has cut more than A$450 million from key science agencies, including:

1. A$111.4 million from the CSIRO;
2. A$74.9 million from the Australian Research Council;
3. A$80 million from the Cooperative Research Centres program;
4. A$7.8 million from the Australian Institute of Marine Science;
5. A$120 million from the Defence Science and Technology Organisation;
6. A$27.6 million from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation; and
7. A$36 million from Geoscience Australia.

What good news there is for science and innovation in the budget – e.g. a new Medical Research Future Fund, and an Entrepreneurs’ Infrastructure Programme – is more than offset by cuts elsewhere.  What this budget lacks is any kind of coherent long-term vision for the kind of capabilities, industries, skills, knowledge – the intellectual capital and infrastructure – that will make up the Australian economy in five years and beyond, once the painful short-term cuts to expenditure have done their work.

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Tags: Innovation, Innovation policy, Politics, Public policy, Public research

IP Australia Delivers Mixed Report Card on Australian IP

Last month IP Australia launched the Australian Intellectual Property Report 2013.

This report contains an attractively-packaged compilation of data and information about the IP system in Australia, and how the country measures up internationally. 

While the report includes information on patents, registered designs, trade marks and plant breeder’s rights, naturally my primary interest is in the statistics on Australia’s performance in relation to patents and technology innovation.

And what IP Australia’s report has to tell us about this is not exactly discouraging, but will hardly set the world on fire.  ‘Revelations’ in the report include:

1. Australians are filing more patent applications than ever before, both locally and overseas;
2. however, increasing patenting activity is not leading to any significant change in Australia’s ‘IP balance of trade’;
3. foreign nationals file the vast majority of Australian standard patent applications, and receive most of the patents granted here; and
4. it appears that the big challenge for Australian companies lies in capturing and extracting value from intangible assets, currently languishing at only 4% of tangible asset value (compared with 91% in the US).

IP Australia promises that this will be the first in an ongoing series of reports and updates, and it is well worth a read..

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Tags: Australia, Innovation, Innovation policy, Patent Office, Public policy, Public research

Five Reasons Why Ars Technica’s Savaging of CSIRO is Appalling

A few days ago Ars Technica published a piece by Joe Mullin entitled ‘How the Aussie government "invented WiFi" and sued its way to $430 million’.  At around the same time, we published a post on the same topic – the CSIRO WLAN patent settlement – broadly based on the same facts, and yet of a very different nature (see The Story Behind CSIRO’s Wi-Fi Patent ‘Windfall’).

The fact of the matter is that, even trying to set aside our own Australian bias, Mullin’s article is a nasty piece, replete with snide insinuations giving the overall impression that CSIRO is some sort of patent troll with diplomatic connections, seeking to extract a ‘tax’ on behalf of a foreign government, from hard-working US companies and consumers, on the basis of a patent of dubious merit.

Since every part of this characterisation of CSIRO’s position is demonstrably false, we can only conclude that Mullin’s piece is an appallingly poor example of journalism.  And we are not alone in this view.  The article received so many negative comments that Mullin felt compelled to post a ‘justification’ addressing the criticisms (Responses and clarifications on the CSIRO patent lawsuits).

Of course, Mullin does not concede that he might have been unfair, or got anything wrong.  But we think he was, and he did.  Here are our top five reasons – in no particular order – why Mullin’s article, and his subsequent ‘justification’, are deserving of strong criticism.

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Tags: Australia, Inventions, Licensing, Politics, Public research, Trolls

The Story Behind CSIRO’s Wi-Fi Patent ‘Windfall’

windfall: noun 1. something blown down by the wind, as fruit. 2. An unexpected piece of good fortune. (Source: The Macquarie Dictionary.)

As has been widely reported in recent days, Australia’s CSIRO has settled outstanding patent claims against US telecommunications companies including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile for around $220 million.  The case against these companies has been ongoing for almost two years, although litigation involving the patent in question, which relates to technology underlying all commonly-deployed wireless local area networking (WLAN) systems and components, has a far longer history than this. 

So far, taking into account previous settlements with numerous device and component manufacturers – including HP, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Netgear, Nintendo, Belkin, D-Link, 3Com and others – CSIRO has reaped over $420 million in income from its WLAN patent.

CSIRO – which stands for Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation – is Australia's national science agency, which lays claim to being one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.  It started life as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1926.

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Tags: Australia, Inventions, Licensing, News, Patent litigation, Public research

Australian Scientists Threatened, as Quality of Debate Slumps

It is not hard, sometimes, to be ashamed of one’s country.  We have no doubt that this is a common experience the world over for all but the most blinkered and jingoistic of citizens.  Of course this is grossly unfair to the many individuals who are thoughtful, intelligent, and engaged in the important issues facing the nation and the world.  But often these are not the people who garner the attention of an increasingly populist and simple-minded media.

Today we received an email which engenders feelings only of disgust and despair.  In the 18 July 2011 issue of the Cooperative Research Centre Association (CRCA) newsletter, CEO Tony Peacock writes:

Climate change scientists at the ANU [Australian National University] have had to be given a higher level of security following email threats that are apparently extraordinarily vicious. Colleagues of mine have been receiving wishes from animal welfarists that they die a long and painful death - presumably because we are involved in restoring some native animals to a sanctuary which involves culling other animals.

And now Greenpeace Australia have decided it is OK to attack CSIRO experimental sites because they don't agree with what CSIRO is doing. Last week in Canberra, Greenpeace "activists" decided to break into a CSIRO site and whipper-snipper a crop of genetically-modified wheat.

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Tags: Australia, News, Politics, Public research

Update on Campaign Against Medical Research Funding Cuts

Last week we reported on the ‘rumours’ (i.e ‘leaks’) suggesting that the Australian government is considering slashing a potential $400 million ($133 million annually, or around 19%) from the funding provided via the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which currently distributes around $700 million each year to university, and other public sector, researchers.

As also reported, a campaign organised under the banner Discoveries Need Dollars has conducted rallies over the past week in every mainland State and Territory capital city, which have so far been attended by over 12,000 people.  The simultaneous Twitter campaign caused #protectresearch to trend not only in Australia, but also in the US and Canada.

In Tuesday 19 April 2011, Discoveries Need Dollars representatives met with senior members of the Federal Government in Canberra.

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Tags: Australia, Funding, Medical research, News, Politics, Public research

Budget Cuts Threaten Australian Medical Research Funding

It is ‘budget season’ once again here in Australia – the time of year when government ‘sources’ start to leak like sieves with information regarding proposed measures in the (supposedly) confidential annual accounting to be announced by the Treasurer in May.

This year, we are greatly concerned by reports that the Australian government is considering slashing the budget for medical research funding by nearly 20%.  This is a disturbing and short-sighted proposal when the Australian economy remains strong, relative to our major trading partners, and medical research is one of the nation’s great strengths.  Australian contributions to medical research and innovation include antibiotics (Howard Florey), the use of lithium to treat psychiatric disorders (John Cade), the ‘bionic ear’ (Graeme Clark) and the cervical cancer vaccine (Ian Frazer), amongst many others.

Why, then, would the nation put this great legacy at risk to achieve short-term political gains?  If you find this as unacceptable as we do, please read on to learn more, and to find out how you can contribute to the various campaigns opposing the proposed cuts.

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Tags: Australia, Funding, Medical research, News, Politics, Public research

Mixed Report Card Issued on Australian Research

In 2010, the Australian Research Council (ARC) conducted the first full evaluation of the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative.  Its report, released on 31 January 2010, provides the outcomes of the ERA 2010 evaluations, which applies to research undertaken between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2008.

The Report indicates that in many fields of research, Australia’s universities perform at, or above, world standards.  (The Report makes the point that ‘world standard’ is a defined indicator of quality and not, for example, a geographical or ‘average’ performance measure.)  Particular strengths include the mathematical, physical and earth sciences, areas of agricultural and veterinary sciences, areas of engineering (especially aerospace, environmental, manufacturing and resources), biotechnology, microtechnology (especially communications and nanotechnology), areas of medical and health sciences, history and archaeology.

Specific fields of research in which four or more institutions were rated as being ‘well above world standards’ include cardiovascular medicine, oncology, immunology, astronomical and space sciences, quantum physics and historical studies.

Areas of relative weakness include education, economics, commerce, social studies, legal studies, creative arts and writing, language, communication and culture.

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Tags: Innovation policy, News, Public research

Does Australia Need its Own Bayh-Dole Style Legislation?

It has been thirty years since US federal policy in relation to the commercialisation of publicly-funded research underwent a major change through the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980.  Bayh-Dole fostered greater uniformity in the way research agencies treat inventions arising from the work they sponsor.  Before the Act, if government agencies funded university research, the funding agency retained ownership of the knowledge and technologies that resulted.  However, very little federally funded research was actually commercialised.

As a result of the Act, which provides for the universities to take title to the IP in most circumstances, patenting and licensing activity from such research has accelerated.

Although the system created by Bayh-Dole has remained stable, concerns have sometimes arisen that it might impede other forms of knowledge transfer, or that universities might prioritize commercialization at the expense of their traditional mission to pursue fundamental knowledge.

The US National Research Council therefore convened a committee of experts from universities, industry, foundations, and similar organizations, as well as scholars of the subject, to review experience and evidence of the technology transfer system's effects and to recommend improvements.  The result of this review is a report, published by National Academies Press (NAP), entitled Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest. 

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Tags: Australia, Innovation policy, Intellectual Asset Management, Public research, US