On 2 December 2020, the Designs Amendment (Advisory Council on Intellectual Property Response) Bill 2020 was introduced into the Senate and is currently before the Parliament for consideration.
A response to this consultation detailing the outcomes and reasoning is now available.
Thank you for your contributions and submissions to this consultation.
Your feedback informed further development of the Bill prior to the introduction to Parliament. In addition to commenting on the Bill, some submissions expressed interest in further policy changes that would enable a broader section of the design economy to benefit from a design right in Australia. While such policy changes are beyond the remit of this Bill, these suggestions are being considered under IP Australia’s broader designs reform work.
View submitted responses where consent has been given to publish the response.
From 23 July 2020 to 28 August 2020 we sought your views on an exposure draft of the Designs Amendment (Advisory Council on Intellectual Property Response) Bill 2020 and the Designs Amendment (Advisory Council on Intellectual Property Response) Regulations 2020 (collectively the ‘draft legislation’) along with the accompanying draft Explanatory Memorandum and draft Explanatory Statement (collectively the ‘explanatory material’). Explanatory material accompanies legislation to assist with the reading and interpretation.
The following proposals are included in the draft legislation:
The proposed legislative package aims to deliver early benefits to designers. In parallel, IP Australia is working on a new online filing system to make the application process smoother, improving access to information on our website, and investigating further reform measures resulting from exploratory research into the design economy and the role of the design rights system (see Design Review Project). You can read more about IP Australia’s other design initiatives here.
Background
The release of the draft legislation follows our consultation, which took place from 31 October to 20 December 2019, on recommendations accepted by the Government from the former Advisory Council on Intellectual Property’s (ACIP) Review of the Designs System.
Thank you to all who took the time to provide us with their views. On 11 May 2020 we released our response to the consultation, which summarised submissions and gave our reasoning on which proposals would be included in the draft legislation.
The earlier consultation included a number of other proposals which will not be progressing in this legislative package. These proposals remain on IP Australia’s Policy Register and if you wish to provide a submission on the issues, we invite you to do so via the Policy Register:
We are seeking comments on the draft legislation, in particular on any unintended consequences of this legislation or issues with the drafting, rather than on the policy that underpins the amendments as this has already been agreed to by the Government.
Please note that the draft explanatory material is still being developed and is intended only as a guide to assist with the interpretation of the draft legislation. IP Australia will undertake further editorial review and finalise the text when a final version of the legislation is settled.
The Bill is currently before Parliament for consideration. You can track the progress of the Bill on the Australian Parliament House website.
You can also subscribe to our What’s New mailing list to stay up to date as our work progresses.
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