So What Is This Innovation Patent Thing Anyway?
Australia has this fantastical beast called an “Innovation Patent”, which is practically the easiest patent protection around: your invention needs to be NEW, but it doesn’t have to be inventive or non-obvious. As far as I'm concerned, this makes it just about the easiest IP protection to get for an invention.
But wait! There’s more!
You don’t even have to get your innovation patent examined to get a granted innovation patent! Can it get any better than this?
So what’s the catch?
Well, there are three. Listed from bad to worst (though from where we stand today – March 2021, none of these are too terrible):
1. Your invention doesn’t need to be “inventive”, but it does need to be “innovative”. Put simply, this means that the feature that makes it novel needs to affect the way it functions. In most cases this is not too hard to show.
2. Instead of the standard lifetime of 20 years for a patent, an innovation patent only lasts 8 years. But especially in high-tech areas where products evolve quickly, 8 years tends to be a long time to get a head start!
3. You only have until 25 August 2021 to file an innovation patent application before innovation patents start being phased out. On the bright side, as long as you have a pending Australian standard application on 25 August 2021 (or even an international patent application (PCT) designating Australia) you can still file a new divisional innovation patent application or convert your standard patent application into an innovation patent application.
PCT applications designating Australia with a filing date of 25 August 2021 or earlier can serve as the basis for a new divisional innovation patent application or be converted into an innovation patent
It’s a no-brainer really: if you want to protect your invention in Australia the easiest way to do it now is to file an innovation patent!
Contact us if you’d like to know more.
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash