Australian Intellectual Property

This text is an introductory commentary and cases text for Intellectual Property Law, which follows a survey/critical approach to the main categories of IP law which are:
. Copyright
. Designs
. Patents
. Trade Marks and Business Reputation, and
. Confidential Information

This approach allows students to grasp the nature and scope of the relevant legislation, case law and administrative practice applicable in each area.

Designed as a critical introduction to Australian intellectual property law, it:
. Equips law students with legal knowledge appropriate for entry-level legal practice in IP
. Provides a foundation to enable students to progress to more specialised postgraduate study of intellectual property law, and
. Develops awareness of rights and commercialisation practices for scientists, creators and managers of IP rights.

Dr Kathy Bowrey is a Professor in the Faculty of Law, UNSW, Sydney. She is a legal historian and socio-legal researcher whose research explores laws and practices that inform knowledge creation and the production, distribution and reception of technology and culture. Her primary expertise relates to intellectual property, information technology regulation, regulatory theory, media practice, business history, feminist scholarship and a concern for Indigenous rights. She has a strong interest in higher education research policy and research management. She has acted as a Consultant to the Council of Australian Law Deans (CALD) concerning research assessment exercises in law. She is a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts (2018-2020). Professor Bowrey is a foundation member of the International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property established in 2008 and she became the Co-Director in 2019.

Michael Handler is a Professor in the Faculty of Law. He researches in the field of intellectual property law, focusing in particular on national and international trade mark law, the international regulation of geographical indications of origin, and copyright law. Michael is the co-author, with Professor Robert Burrell, of Australian Trade Mark Law (2nd ed, Oxford University Press, 2016), one of the leading texts on the topic. He is also the co-author, with Professors Kathy Bowrey, Dianne Nicol and Kimberlee Weatherall, of Australian Intellectual Property: Commentary, Law and Practice (2nd ed, Oxford University Press, 2015). He has written numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on various aspects of local and international intellectual property law, in publications including the Modern Law Review, Melbourne University Law Review, Federal Law Review and the Trademark Reporter. He also co-authored influential submissions to government law reform inquiries.

Kimberlee Weatherall is a Professor of Law at the University of Sydney, and a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre for Automated Decision-Making and Society. She specialises in issues at the intersection of law and technology, as well as intellectual property law. Her current research focuses on the law relating to the collection, ownership, use and governance of data about and related to people, including privacy law, with the goal of ensuring that data collection, use and linkage, and data and predictive analytics are developed in ways that are beneficial to people and society. She is a Fellow at the Gradient Institute, and a research affiliate of the Humanising Machine Intelligence group at the Australian National University. Kimberlee also holds funding from the Minderoo Foundation to investigate Private Law and AI, and is an associate with UWA's Minderoo Law and Tech Policy Lab.

Dianne Nicol is a Professor of Law in the Faculty of Law and Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics. Professor Nicol was Chair of Academic Senate at the University of Tasmania between 2013 and 2019, and took on the role of acting Provost between November 2017 and June 2018. She was admitted as a barrister and solicitor to the Supreme Court of Tasmania and the High Court of Australia in 1998 and spent some time in legal practice. Her research history includes both law and science. Her current research focuses primarily on the regulation of personalized medicine, biobanking, genome editing and other emerging technologies, together with commercialisation of biotechnology and patenting of biotechnological inventions. Professor Nicol is currently the lead chief investigator on two Australian Research Council funded projects: Genomic Data Sharing: Issues in Law, Research Ethics and Society; and Reforming the Regulatory Environment for Innovative Health Technologies.

Associate Professor Jane Nielsen is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law. She is a member of the Centre for Law and Genetics and her area of expertise is in the area of intellectual property law, particularly as it relates to biomedical research. She has a number of publications examining the intersection between intellectual property law and competition law. She has also recently become involved in researching the legal implications of 3D printing, specifically those relating to intellectual property and consumer law.