Watermark

The amendments to the Regulations have been made in response to reviews of the regulatory and discipline regimes undertaken by the Professional Standards Board for Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys (PSB) and delivered to the Federal Government respectively in 2002 and 2004.

Copies of the PSB reviews and the respective Australian Government responses are available from the PSB website (www.psb.gov.au). Copies of IP Australia’s consultation papers on implementing these responses are available from the IP Australia website (www.ipaustralia.gov.au). The Regulations themselves were first released for review earlier this year.

The original reviews sought to substantially lift the base qualifications of patent and trade marks attorneys in Australia to ensure their ability to address the increasingly complex issues of intellectual property in law and practice, as well as to ensure that such professional standards of qualification were maintained through continuing education, and protected using appropriate disciplinary measures.

• There is now a requirement that registered patent and trade marks attorneys undertake compulsory continuing professional development activities to be eligible to annually renew their registration. Attorneys practising in both patents and trade marks will be required to log a combined 15 hours of continuing education in these fields. Attorneys acting only in respect of patents or trade marks will only require 10 hours of continuing professional development.
• Pre-registration employment requirements for patent attorneys are now skills-based and require that an applicant for registration as an attorney obtain a certification from a member of the profession having at least 5 years experience as to their practical skills.
• The disciplinary regime has been simplified by giving the PSB sole responsibility for investigating and taking matters to the existing Patent and Trade Marks Attorneys Disciplinary Tribunal. This will significant alter the current process which is administratively cumbersome and can fail to address matters of significant concern whilst allowing complaints of a very minor nature to progress to an unnecessarily serious level.
• Key definitions of “professional misconduct” have been altered to bring them into line with definitions used by the broader legal profession.