The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Bill 2011 proposes a wide range of amendments to patent and trade mark law. This article overviews some of them.

Patents Act Amendment

For patents, the aims of the Bill include to raise the quality of patents granted, require greater disclosure of details of the usefulness of inventions, and expand exemptions for non-commercial research of patented inventions.

This is a short note on the Full Federal Court's February 2011 decision in Roadshow Films Pty Limited v iiNet Limited [2011] FCAFC 23.

In this important decision comprising 807 paragraphs with three counsel on each side, the Full Federal Court upheld the first instance decision of February 2010 (Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited (No. 3) [2010] FCA 24).

In both decisions iiNet, an internet service provider ("ISP"), was held to be not liable for any copyright infringing activities of its customers who used BitTorrent, a peer to peer software for sharing digital files.

In the year 2000 I noticed people in business taking significant legal risks in preparing emails in a rush. I wrote a detailed article with practical hints titled Email Abuse, search that expression on this site and you'll find the article PDF or go here.

Today poorly written emails are causing business and legal issues in epidemic proportions. (As evidence I'm guided by my firm's experience in new client matters.) These low quality emails feed into risky business proposals, unnecessarily stretch out transactions, and cause higher legal costs.

My purpose here is to reduce these issues with two practical suggestions.

In business negotiations poorly negotiated deal points are like ill-fitting cogs in a machine. They don't work together well, or at all. As ill-fitting parts are stressed, parts warp and system-wide issues proliferate.

I've had decades of experience in business negotiations and documenting results in contracts. It seems more and more new clients come to us only after taking the risk of agreeing to business deals that can't be documented later in a contract, either easily or at all.

Many trends and business management gaps are causing this risk to grow. We'll focus here on proposal writing as a practical way to minimise or avoid the risk.

Some business deal ideas simply can't be made to work, either commercially or legally.

To get an intellectual property monopoly you need more than legal knowledge. You and your advisers must understand and apply know-how relating to commercialisation, which American cousins spell commercialization. Here's what we do for clients.

To test client product or service ideas, innovations and inventions my firm uses a lot of different questionnaires, checklists and other template-based document types. We supply them via email. For us and for clients these documents save time and hence money and generally help get better results, faster. For clients it's a convenience to not have to come into our office for a long meeting.

Anyone can apply to register a trade mark. To obtain the strongest protection usually requires working with lawyers and other professionals with up-to-date knowledge, resources and experience.

The hurdles and risks of do-it-yourself trade mark filing are many. If minimising costs is your aim then you can do it yourself. If the aim is to build higher quality monopoly legal rights, held by an appropriate owner, and growing as a long-term investment then engage professionals.

Here's seven ways these benefits arise in working with experienced professionals.

Which smartphone operating systems ("OS") are currently in play, how do they rate, and what Android OS market share statistics are there?

Helping to frame this question, Choice, the Australian consumer magazine and online service, has published its latest mobile phone analysis titled Touchscreen mobile phones review (registration required).

Brand creation and legal protection of of a name requires more than just trade mark registration.

What you register as a trade mark should fit within what we call your overall brand architecture.

Brand architecture is a systematic way of organising the identity of the different products, services, messages, or elements of an organisation so that people both within and outside the organisation understand its brands.

When I started building a home media centre last year I discovered something unexpected. My focus was on building a living room hifi system. I wanted it for lossless computer-stored music (I use a Mac and iTunes), not MP3s, iPods, vinyl or CDs.

Being a music lawyer I'm into advice. I asked a audiophile friend for advice, he suggested certain brands and product types and recommended an experienced local hifi shop owner.

From January 2011, as part of the new Australian Consumer Law, a national unfair contracts legal regime affects contracts with consumers.

Section 23 of the new Competition and Consumer Act 2010 makes a term in a consumer contract void if the term is unfair and the contract is a standard form contract.

Let's examine those prerequisites from a consumer's perspective.

1. Am I a consumer?

You are a consumer if you acquire goods or services to an amount that does not exceed $40,000. Goods or services costing more than $40,000 are covered if they are of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use or consumption.