Australia To Tweak IP Laws At Request Of United States

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

24 November 2004

Speaking at the recent APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in Chile, Australia's Trade Minister, Mark Vaile revealed that that the Australian government is planning to tweak its intellectual property (IP) laws prior to the implementation of its Free Trade Agreement with the United States in January of next year.

According to reports in the regional media, the US had expressed concerns that the implementing legislation for the FTA did not fully address Australia's IP commitments. It has been suggested that the concerns of the US authorities sprang from the opposition Labour Party's attempts to restrict the patent rights of US drug firms under the terms of the FTA, although no official comment has been made on the matter.

Speaking to reporters, the Australian Trade Minister did not seek to clarify exactly what legislative changes will be taking place, instead announcing that:

“There will be some amendments in terms of unintended consequences with some elements of language as is the case with domestic legislation - often you will introduce legislation, there will be unintended consequences, there’ll be need for minor adjustments that will need to take place.”

He went on to add:

“We’ve been saying all along as we’ve been providing some commentary on the process of discussion with the US over the last couple of months in describing it as a difference in interpretation of language. Whether it should be an ‘and’ or an ‘or’, put simplistically, and that’s basically what it is."

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