Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, today announced the appointment of Justice Nye Perram as a Deputy President of the Copyright Tribunal of Australia.

“It gives me great pleasure to announce Justice Perram’s appointment to the Tribunal,” Mr McClelland said.

The Copyright Tribunal arbitrates disputes between principally copyright collecting societies and their licensees over copyright licence fees.

The Tribunal is an important feature of Australia’s copyright system. Justice Perram, who is a judge of the Federal Court, will take up the appointment as Deputy President on 8 June 2009 for three years.

Microsoft has been ordered to pay $US388 million ($547m) in damages for infringing a patent held by anti-piracy software maker Uniloc Inc.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, said it was disappointed in the verdict, and plans to appeal.

The verdict was reached by a jury in a long-running case in federal court in Rhode Island, which found that Microsoft infringed Uniloc’s patent on software that generates unique identities for licensed users and prevents unauthorised use or copying of programs.

“We believe that we do not infringe, that the patent is invalid and that this award of damages is legally and factually unsupported,” said a Microsoft spokesman. “We will ask the court to overturn the verdict.”

Uniloc USA and its Singapore-based parent originally filed suit against Microsoft in 2003, claiming that Microsoft infringed its patent with security software it was using to prevent unlicensed use of its Windows XP operating system and parts of its Office suite of products.

After six years of legal wrangling, the jury trial started in March. The damages award is one of the largest on record in patent law disputes.

Microsoft order to pay in patent case

IP Australia has opened a new patent examination centre in Melbourne today, to meet the future needs of Australia’s innovators.

The Melbourne Patent Examination Centre will be responsible for examining patent applications in the fields of chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry and electronics. Director General of IP Australia, Mr Philip Noonan said “Patents play an important role in the success of an innovation. This new examination centre will help us provide a better service to Australian innovators.”

The Melbourne Patent Examination Centre will help IP Australia to provide robust patents in a timely manner to Australian innovators. The Melbourne Patent Examination Centre is IP Australia’s first substantial presence outside of Canberra for many decades and will create 41 new jobs.

“Melbourne is an innovative city and was chosen to enable us to tap into the high quality graduates the Melbourne Universities are producing. This presence allows us to focus on recruitment in technologies where we are facing the greatest resource gaps.”

Book launch for Landmarks in Australian Intellectual Property Law
Edited by: Andrew T Kenyon, Megan Richardson and Sam Ricketson, Cambridge University Press, 2009

Wednesday 25 March 2009, 5.30pm for 6.00-7.00pm
Mallesons Stephen Jaques
Level 50, Bourke Place,
600 Bourke Street,
Melbourne VIC 3000

Please join us to celebrate the publication of this new book published by Cambridge University Press and edited by Professors Andrew Kenyon, Megan Richardson and Sam Ricketson of the Melbourne Law School, when it is launched by Dr Emmerson QC. This authoritative text provides a picture of how Australian intellectual property law has developed as a distinctly Australian body of law during the century since Federation – taking a selection of key intellectual property law cases, situating them in their social contexts, and telling their stories as well as providing factual details about the arguments and evidence. Landmarks in Australian Intellectual Property Law is a valuable resource for academics, researchers, practitioners and judges in Australia and throughout the common law world. Authors and chapters are as follows:

Richard Garnett, ‘Potter v Broken Hill: misuse of precedent in cross-border IP litigation’
Sam Ricketson, ‘The Union Label case: an early Australian IP story’
Peter Heerey and Nicole Malone, ‘RPM for RPM: National Phonographic Company of Australia v Menck’
Jill McKeough, ‘Horses and the Law: the enduring legacy of Victoria Park Racing’
Stephen Hubicki and Brad Sherman, ‘We have never been modern: the High Court’s decision in National Research Development Corporation v Commissioner of Patents’
Sam Ricketson and David Catterns, ‘Of vice-chancellors and authors: UNSW v Moorhouse’
Christoph Antons, ‘Foster v Mountford: cultural confidentiality in a changing Australia’
Mark Davison, ‘Cadbury Schweppes v Pub Squash: what is all the fizz about?’
Janice Luck, ‘The Firmagroup case: trigger for designs law reform’
Megan Richardson, ‘Larger than life in the Australian cinema: Pacific Dunlop v Hogan‘
Elizabeth Adeney, ‘O Fortuna! On the vagaries of litigation and the story of musical debasement in Australia’
Colin Golvin, ‘The protection of At the Waterhole by John Bulun Bulun: Aboriginal art and the recognition of private and communal rights’
Matthew Rimmer, ‘The grapes of wrath: the Coonawarra dispute, geographical indications and international trade’
Leanne Wiseman and Matthew Hall, ‘Waiting for the “Billy”® to boil: the Waltzing Matilda case’

Please RSVP to Charlotte Morgans at law-cmcl@unimelb.edu.au by Monday, 23rd March 2009