News

Australia’s vibrant fashion industry is worth billions and serves as a significant source of employment. With so much creativity and innovation involved, intellectual property (IP) protection is key to Australia’s fashion law.

The UK Supreme Court has ruled partially in favour of SkyKick in a significant case challenging Sky's trade mark practices. The court found that Sky acted in bad faith by registering trade marks for goods and services it had no intention of using, aiming to gain overly broad protection and leverage these marks as "legal weapons" against competitors.

Registering scent trade marks is difficult due to the need for clear and objective descriptions that consumers can understand. Despite this, in 2024 Crayola secured a significant win by registering the distinct "crayon scent" as a trade mark in the United States.

Correctly identifying trade mark ownership is essential in Australia, as a trade mark registered to the wrong owner can be invalidated.

When we look beyond the obvious benefits of a trade mark, there are 8 key areas within a successful business which benefit from trade mark registrations being secured.

IP Australia has recently unveiled its Cost Recovery Implementation statement (CRIS), resulting in updated fee charges which came into effect from 1 October 2024.

We are pleased to announce that the trade mark and law practice groups of Maxwells (“MAXPAT”) is joining IP Solved (ANZ) Pty Ltd.

Congratulations to Samsung Electronics in ranking first in the Top 100 Global Innovators 2024 report that was released today by ‘Clarivate’, who for 13 years has identified the organizations leading the world in technology research and innovation in this annual report. • Japan maintains its position as the biggest contributor of Top 100 entities, with 38 innovators. • Mainland China and South Korea continue to expand their representation in the list.

Earlier this year, IP Australia released their eleventh edition of the ‘Australian Intellectual Property Report’. As we finish up the year, we thought it would be a good time to look back and reflect on the year that was in the world of Australian IP filing statistics…. who could ask for a better Christmas present!