Australia IP: Trademarks, Patents, Industrial Designs, Copyright and Domain Names

Australia is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous other islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east.

Technologically advanced and industrialised, Australia is a prosperous multicultural country and has good results in many international comparisons of national performance such as health care, life expectancy, quality-of-life, human development, public education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights.

General Information

Capital:

Canberra

Population:

21,5 Million

Languages:

English

Government Type:

Federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy

Dialing Code:

+61

Timezone:

GMT +9

Monetary Unit:

Australian dollar (AUD)

More information:

Australia

International Arrangements

WIPO Convention
Paris Convention (Industrial Property)
Berne Convention (Literary and Artistic Works)
PCT (Patents)
Madrid Protocol (International Registration of Marks)
Nice Agreement (International Classification of Goods and Services)
Rome Convention (Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations)
Strasbourg Agreement (International Patent Classification)
Geneva Convention (Unauthorized Duplication of Phonograms)
Brussels Convention (Distribution of Programme-Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite)
Budapest Treaty (Deposit of Micro-organisms)
TLT (Trademarks)
WCT (WIPO Copyright Treaty)
WPPT (WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty)

Patents

Applicants not living in the country:
• must have an address for service in Australia **

Filing requirements:
Form:
• The patent application must be in English, signed by an attorney
• Complete specification:
• Fully describe your invention so that others could reproduce your invention from the information given;
• Give the best method of performing your invention;
• End with a claim** or claims which define the invention which the patent is to cover.
• Be in English;
• Be on only one side of each A4 page, in duplicate;
• Not include photographs;
• Allow sufficient margins (i.e. at least 2.5 cm) on all pages;

**(For a standard patent you can have any number of claims. An innovation patent can have only five claims). Please note that a standard patent application with more than 20 claims at acceptance will incur additional fees.

• Patent Request: Standard Patent or a Patent Request for Innovation Patent form;
• A Notice of Entitlement form for Standard patents, (although you can file this form at a later stage if you need to)
• The filing fee;

National phase under PCT:
• Providing the Australian Patent Office:
• Full name of applicant;
• A statement confirming the intention proceed as an application in Australia, as a standard patent, patent of addition or an innovation patent;
• An address for service in Australia;
• The application number, preferably the Australian number but if necessary the WIPO number;
• The applicants signature and date;
• A fee.

Publication:
• Specifications in relation to an application for a standard patent became open-to-public inspection (OPI) on microfiche, CD-ROM and electronically, eighteen months after the earliest priority date of the claim or claims of the complete specification.

Granting:
• A patent is deemed to be granted on sealing of the application by the Patent Office;
• Sealing must take place within six months of the advertisement of acceptance;

Modification of protection after granting:
• Re-examination may occur at the instigation of the patentee
• Assignments and licences may be entered into at any time and must be registered in the Patent Office
• If patents ceases unintentionally and there is no undue delay in making application, the patent can be restored
• A petition for revocation may be made to a State Supreme Court or the Federal Court at any time during the term of the patent. The grounds includes lack of invention, lack of novelty, lack of inventive step, insufficiency, prior secret use and obtaining

Duration:
• For a standard patent is for twenty years from the date of filing the complete specification of the patent;
• Can be extended up to five years beyond the normal twenty years for pharmaceutical patents where regulatory approval delays have been encountered.

Annuities:
• Fees are payable annually before the anniversary of the complete application date, commencing with the fifth anniversary.

Territory covered:
• Australia, the Australian continent shelf, the waters above the Australian continental shelf and the air space above Australia and Australian continental shelf;

INNOVATION PATENTS
As for the Patent Invention

Granting:
• Is granted for eight years from the filing date of the complete specification

Annuities:
• Due at the second and subsequent anniversary

Trademarks

Any person, firm or company, who is the proprietor of the trademark, may apply. It is also possible for a trademark to be registered by any applicant who does not intend to use the trademark but intends the mark to be used by any authorized user or to assign it to a corporation.

Applicants not living in the country:
• May apply for registration on the same terms as an Australian applicant but must give an address for service in Australia

Filing requirements:
Form:
• If the mark is a device mark or a word in a particular form, in black and white or in colour, at least 2 clear representation, within the limits of 80 mm by 80 mm.
Specifications:
• The list of the goods and/or services to be covered by the trademark
• Priority document with certified English translation
• Registration: marks must be capable of distinguishing, and are capable to include words, names, devices, aspects of packaging, shapes, colours, sounds or scents, and be represented graphically
• Novelty: the trademark must not be substantially identical or deceptively similar to a trademark registered or applied for earlier by another person, in respect of goods or services of the same description.

Exceptions to protection:
- Marks not capable of being represented graphically
- Masks contrary to law
- Marks likely to deceive or cause confusion
- Marks including the word patent, registered, registered design, royal or similar words, royal arms, national flags, seals and international symbols

Priorities:
- May be claimed within six months of filing a corresponding application in a convention country

Classification:
International Classification of goods and services

• Territory covered: Australia and Norfolk Islands

• Examination procedure:
- Applications are subjected to official search for earlier marks in respect of similar goods or services with which the applied mark is considered likely to be confused, to whether the mark is capable of distinguishing the goods or services and whether the goods or services are properly detailed and classified.
- Publication: full particulars are open-to-public inspection shortly after the application is field, details of the application are published in the Official Journal following acceptance of the application.

Granting:
- Ten years from application date renewal for periods of ten years as often as required, but on payment of renewal fees, calculated from the date of filing the application, and are receivable 12 months prior to the due date.

Designs and Models

Filing requirements:
• Form:
- An application form signed by the applicant or, if a company, by an officer on its behalf
- Facsimiles necessary to show the design
- A certified copy of the basic registration
- A design is concerned primarily with the appearance of the article relating to the shape, configuration, pattern or ornamentation applied to an article by an industrial process or means

Specifications:

• Power of Attorney in English
• Drawings or photographs
• Certified copy of the basic registration with certified English translation

Novelty:
- The design must not have been published in Australia before the filing date or the priority date of the application and the design applied for must differ from the prior art so as to be distinguishable in other details than immaterial details previously published in Australia

Priority:
- A convention application may be filed within six months of the date of the first application in a convention country

Articles:
- The application must specify the nature of the article to which the design is applied

Series Applications:
- The proprietor of the design may apply to register the design or similar design of a prior registration in respect of other articles in the same or additional classes and does not need to show novelty over the earlier registrations.

Territory covered:
- Commonwealth of Australia and Norfolk Islands

Miscellaneous:
- An application may include, or be required to include a “statement of monopoly”, a “statement of novelty” or both. The “statement of monopoly” is to identify those features of the design for which a monopoly is claimed and those features to be disregarded. The “statement of novelty” is to identify those features in respect of which novelty or originality is claimed.

Publication:
- There is no printed publication, but details become open-to-public inspection on registration. Photocopies may be obtained at this time.

Granting:
- The certificate of registration is issued upon registration in the absence of objections, about three to six months after application. The protection begins on the date of the filing the application except in the case of a convention application where it will be the date of filing the basic application.

Duration:
- One year from the date of the act of registration, renewal for a first period of six years from the application date, and thereafter for two further periods each of five years.

Renewal:
- The design is renewal for the first period before expiry of the initial one-year term, with no extension available.

Copyrights

Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works

As a member of the Berne Convention, it is possible to copyright protect creative works in this country, as well as all the other member nations automatically (more than 160 countries), with one single application.

For more information and to submit us your works for worldwide copyright protection, click here.

Domain Names

Domain extension:

.au

Requirements:
- be an Australian registered company or have an Australian partnership or sole trader; or
- be the owner of an Australian Registered Trade Mark, the applicant of Australian Trademark, or the owner of an international trademark including the Australian territory

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Australia IP: Trademarks, Patents, Industrial Designs, Copyright and Domain Names