Australian Innovation Patents
IMPORTANT – Innovation patents are being phased out and can be filed only until 25th August 2021. This does not affect the validity of existing Innovation patents.
General Information
| Deadline | When a deadline falls due on a weekday or holiday, you may file by the next working day after the deadline without any loss of rights. |
| Applicant | Inventor (s) or the assignee of the inventor (5); the assignee may be one or more individuals or a company. Two or more parties may apply jointly. |
| Claims | A maximum of 5 claims, including only 1 independent claim. |
| Examination | Optional, at any time before or after grant. Innovation Patents must be examined and certified before any enforcement action can be taken. |
| Term | 8 years from the date of filing the specification (or the International Filing Date in the case of PCT Applications). |
| Maintenance/renewal Fees | To maintain either a pending application or a granted patent, annual maintenance fees must be paid from the second anniversary of the filing of the complete specification (or from the International Filing Date in the case of PCT applications. The grace period is six months, subject to payment of an additional monthly fee. |
| Novelty | Absolute novelty i.e. novel with respect to anything made available to the public in any form, anywhere in the world, before the priority date, subject of the following exceptions:
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| Innovative Step | Applications are examined for innovative step, based on the prior art base and the common general knowledge of a person skilled in the art. The threshold is lower than "inventive step". |
| PCT | An innovation patent application cannot be filed directly as the national phase of a PCT application. If an innovation patent based on a PCT application is wanted, the procedure is to file a standard patent application as the national phase application, and then convert the standard patent application to an innovation patent application. Alternatively, the innovation patent application may be filed as a divisional. |
Filing Requirements
Minimum Requirements for Filing Date |
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| 1. Applicant | Full legal name, nationality, and address. |
| 2. Inventors | Full legal name, nationality and address of the or each inventor. |
| 3. Specification | English language only: description, claims and abstract, together with sequence listings if appropriate, preferably in editable format (Microsoft Word 2010 compatible, .doc/.docx/.txt). A maximum of 5 claims, only one independent claim. The abstract preferably should be no longer than 150 words. The abstract forms part of the specification, in relation to determining the extent of the disclosure. |
| 4. Drawings | The drawings must be line drawings in black-and-white and the drawing sheets must be numbered sheet number/total number of sheets. |
| 5. If Convention priority is claimed | Convention priority country, date and application number. A certified copy of the Convention priority document and/or a verified translation are not required unless specifically requested by the examiner. |
Additional Formal Requirements |
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| 6. Notice of Entitlement (may be signed by Agent) | If the application is filed in the name of a person or legal entity other than the inventor (s), then a notice of entitlement must be filed setting out the manner in which the right to apply for the patent was transmitted from the inventor (s) to the applicant. If the transmission was by virtue of a contract of employment, this should be stated; if the transmission was by virtue of assignment, the date of the assignment must be given, but it is not necessary to file a copy of the assignment deed. If Convention priority is claimed, and the applicant in the Convention country was different to the Australian applicant, then details of the transfer of rights (e.g. date of assignment) must be given. |
| 7. Request for Examination | Is optional and may be requested before or after grant. (See "Examination" in the previous section) |