A Senate committee has recommended that Parliament pass Australia’s new intellectual property (IP) laws in a bid to promote and incentive “investment in creativity, innovation, research, and technology”.

The Senate Economics Legislation Committee’s report said the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2018 will phase out the innovation patent system, as well as allowing for automated decision-making on patents.

According to the Bill, the introduction of automated decision-making will ease the burden on the commissioner and registrars, who have to “make a large number of decisions” that are currently delegated to IP Australia employees.

“These decisions range from simple decisions that require no discretion to complex decisions that require judgement to be exercised. The use of computerised and computer-assisted decision-making will improve the timeliness and accuracy of decision-making and enable staff to deal with more complicated matters,” the explanatory memorandum says.

“Consequently, IP Australia intends to continue to explore and use new technologies to deliver a high standard of service, which includes the ability to make decisions by computer programs.”

IP Australia will then “institute internal governance” to ensure that computerised decision-making is only used with direct approval of the commissioner or registrar, which will also allow written submissions to be received in electronic form.

The author is a patent consultant from MR Technollect Solutions (www.mrtechnollect.com)