Managing IP magazine’s Asia editor Peter Ollier will conduct a live online interview with IP Australia Director General Philip Noonan on Friday 6 March at 4pm Sydney time. Registration for this event is free.

The one-hour interview will cover topics such as the recommendations in Terry Cutler’s venturousaustralia report, innovative step and inventive step in Australia’s patent law, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the impact of the credit crunch on patent and trade mark applications in Australia.

In Edwards v Liquid Engineering 2003 Pty Ltd [2008] FCA 970, Liquid Engineering 2003 (“LE2003”) successfully brought trade mark infringement proceedings and was also successful in bringing a claim under section 88 of the Trade Marks Act, to have the register rectified to reflect the fact that it was the true owner of two trade marks which had been registered by its former employee, Edwards. However, as LE2003 had originally brought the claim for rectification under section 92, the trial judge made an order that it pay Edwards’ costs of those original proceedings.

Decisions of the Commissioner (Hearings Decisions) are now available online and can be accessed via the IPONZ website. Search facilities include:

• The ability to search for key words across multiple decisions
• Ability to download the decisions in document (RTF) format
• Improved indexing of decisions by year and descriptions of opposition and parties
• Links where applicable to relevant Acts, other hearings and court decisions

The Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) has changed the way that patent details for all Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications entering New Zealand national phase are captured.

From December 2008, patent details for all national phase applications will be copied from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) database. The change in process means a reduction in the time taken to capture information and greater consistency in the way that IPONZ and WIPO format information. The changes apply to the following patent details:

The final report of the review into the effectiveness and impacts of legislation that protected the Olympic movement and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games from ambush marketing has been released.

In response to legislative changes requiring ISPs to have a termination policy for repeat copyright infringers, the NZ Telecommunications Carriers’ Forum has released a draft ISP Copyright Code of Practice for public consultation.

Submissions on the draft code close at 5pm on Friday, 6 March 2009.