Minutes/Policy Development Committee/IP Laws Amendment Bill Inquiry WG/2014-01-29

Meeting Minutes

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Attendance

Reading through the explanatory memoranda
Most of the content is fairly basic.
Due date is 7th February.
Most of the content seems very positive, a lot of it is just routine amendments.
It's important to make sure that the administrative changes aren't concealing anything untoward.
For the most part, the patent reform has been promising.

Schedule 1 deals with compulsory licences, which we're in favour of.
Schedule 2 seems to mostly be administrative amendments.
Schedule 3 gives the Federal Circuit Court the ability to look at plant breeder's rights cases.
Schedule 4 deals with Trans-Tasman patent attorneys — seems to just implement an agreement that Australia signed.
Schedule 5 is miscellaneous amendments.

Not particularly concerning.
Seems to just implement an agreement that we can't get out of.
ANZ single economic market hasn't really been a bad thing.
Both counties have always been close, economically, culturally and politically.
We already have an agreement to streamline the registration of members of occupations, including patent attorneys, across both countries.
The explanatory memorandum makes out the case that this is poorly regulated.
It looks like an NZ patent attorney wouldn't need to show they were competent under Australian law before working here and vice versa.
Imposing standards isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Being closely linked on this won't bring the patent systems into line.
- "This new process will not create a single patent covering both Australia and New Zealand. Each country will grant patents under its own legislation."

Not totally sure why remuneration must be settled before manufacture in some cases, and not in others:
- "If the pharmaceutical product is to address a public health crisis in the importing country, then the Australian manufacturer can make and export the pharmaceutical product before the remuneration is determined. For other public non-commercial use of the pharmaceutical product by the importing country, the remuneration must be determined before the Australian manufacturer can make and export the pharmaceutical product."
Presumably it's to make sure that the patent holder gets money.
It seems unnecessary to split hairs between "urgent" and "not so urgent."
Seems to lack criteria for determining whether something is a crisis or not.
It might actually be required by TRIPS, and so nothing can be done.
We can ask for the rationale to be explained, and standards need clarity, in our submission.

As we support the abolition of pharmaceutical patents, extensions for pharmaceutical patents should be opposed on principle.
Drug patents are longer due to approval times.
They want to ensure that compulsory licences do not interfere with the extensions, etc.
We're going to blanket oppose in the submission.