Annual Technical Report on Patent Information Activities in 2023 submitted by IP Australia
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URLs in responses should meet the following requirements:
I. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN PATENT INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Information on the following topics is desired:
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IP Australia’s vision is to deliver world leading IP services that are modern, effective, and efficient to ensure all Australians benefit from great ideas, through administration of IP rights. In Australia, the COVID-19 shock saw an increase in the volume of patent filings in Australia to record levels in 2021 and 2022. Applications have since returned to the pre-pandemic trend, as the global economy faceschallenges such as persistent inflation, rising interest ratesand weak trade growth.IP Australia has continued to provide excellent service to our customers, while focusing on critical activities that transform service delivery for the benefit of the IP Rights ecosystem.
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Patents Modernisation Initiative (PMI): In 2023 IP Australia continued with the multiple-year PMI journey to modernise internal Patent systems to make it easier for examination and administration staff to perform their work. A more detailed description of PMI can be found in subsequent sections.
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Customer Value Program (CVP): The CVP vision is to ensure all Australians benefit from great ideas by providing world-leading IP-related digital services that are modern, efficient and effective. The CVP aims to transform IP Australia’s internal processes and capabilities and align them to a customer-centric and delivery-focused model. The program has delivered efficiencies for end-to-end IP rights administration and improved engagement and satisfaction for IP Australia’s customers.
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- A modern, practical and informative corporate website ,
- Modern and effective correspondence correspondence,
- Streamlined and efficient processes and services for customers customers, and
- Digital experience personalisation and maturity.
Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year:
In the space of patent information, IP Australia’s Patent Analytics Hub published interactive patent analytics reports on artificial intelligence (AI) computing, hardware andapplications,and on quantum computing, sensors, communication and applications in 2023.
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and registrations with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes:
Item | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
National Applications – Direct filing | 8,586 | 8,578 | 9,026 | 8,164 | 8,846 |
PCT Applications – National phase entry | 22,929 | 23,714 | 23,383 | 21,138 | 20,942 |
Granted standard patents | 15,573 | 16,407 | 17,154 | 17,776 | 17,007 |
In 2023, applications for standard patents fell slightly from their levels in 2022.More information on patent filing trends and statistics can be found in the Australian Intellectual Property Report 2024.
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Patent Analytics Hub:https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/tools-and-research/Professional-resources/Data-research-and-reports/Patent-analytics
II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Information on the following topics is desired:
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IP Australia provides information on its website to support applicants filing. :
- https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/how-to-apply-for-a-patent/what-to-consider-before-applying-for-a-patent
- https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/how-to-apply-for-a-patent/how-to-write-specifications
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Examiners redraft applicant-prepared abstracts of non-PCT national applications when they are found to be deficient to an extent that they are unable to fulfil their function, or not submitted at filing. The abstracts of PCT national phase applications are not reviewed as these have been thoroughly evaluated in the international phase.
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IP Australia’s Patent AnalyticsHub analyses patent data on specific technology fields and provides reports as interactive visualisations or written reports to allow users to access and gain insights from patent information. IP Australia uses its patent analytics capability to provide added value to its International-Type Search (PCT Article 15(5)) reports, which now include an additional patent analytics report. IP Australia also provides patent analytics reports to government agencies and publicly funded researchers upon request.
III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE
Information on the following topics is desired:
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The AU-B figure includes standard patent acceptances and innovation patent certifications.
Link: https://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/epublish/content/olsAvailablePatentPDFs.jsp
Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.:
Official notices and changes to office procedures are published in the Australian Official Journal of Patents (AOJP). These official notices, and many other patent related notices (including the manual Manual of practice Practice and procedureProcedure), are also put directly on the IP Australia website under the Patent notices section (https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/news-and-community/official-notices#als_e=0&als_iptags=Patents).TheAOJP and the Supplement to the Official Journal of Patents have been combined from 2018 and can be found at:http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/epublish/content/olsAvailablePatentPDFs.jsp
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- AusPat - AusPat is IP Australia's search database that allows inventors, industry and researchers to access patent applications lodged and granted in Australia(free of charge). AusPat also provides access to eDossier which is IP Australia’s case file register.:
http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/faqs.html
- Bulk Data Products- Australian patent specifications are made available throughBulk Patent Specification and Patent Bibliographic Bulk Data products.:https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/tools-and-research/professional-resources/bulk-data-requests
- Patents Search API – An Application Programming Interface (API) for accessing AusPat data.Responses are provided in JSON.:
https://portal.api.ipaustralia.gov.au/s/communityapi/a082w00000TJfb7AAD/developersaustralianpatentsearchapi
- Patents Journal – Weekly publication that provides key lifecycle event details on IP Australia’s Patent applications:
https://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/epublish/content/olsAvailablePatentPDFs.jsp
- Patents Authority File – Patent Publication kind codes and dates where available provided in the ST.37 compatible format.:
https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/authority-file-for-ip-australia-patents-collection
- IP RAPID – Intellectual Property Refreshed Automated Product for Information and Data is a publicly available data set that provides access to over 100 years of information from IP Australia on IP rights applications (free of charge). : https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/tools-and-research/professional-resources/data-research-and-reports/open-ip-data
- IPLORD - Intellectual Property Longitudinal Research Data is the annual snapshot of the stocks and flows of intellectual property (IP) rights for 477,463 Australian and 330,552 international applicants over 20 years(free of charge). : https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-41383895-e0ea-4904-b3e1-ae5b938e82a5/details?q=
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IP Australia continues to share patent information with various external organisations including WIPO and European Patent Office,with bibliographic data, IPC/CPC classification, documentsand citations of Australian & PCT applications to enrich shared international patent information databases.
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Note: Interested parties may also download the Patent Supplemental Journal in xml XML format from the secure FTP server in line with the weekly journal publication dates. It is also freely available on the Patent Supplement Downloadable Journals web page: http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/epublish/content/olsAvailablePatentPDFs.jsp
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Other sources:
No comment is made here.
IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Information on the following topics is desired:
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Online Application portal (replacing eServices) is a : A bespoke interactive cloud-based website for self-filers to file applications and mange existing IPRs. https://portal.ipaustralia.gov.au/login
B2B API channel allows : Allows professional IP service providers to submit applications and manage IPRs via APIshttps://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/tools-and-research/Professional-resources/APIs
Order Management Workbench (OMW) is an : An internal web-based interface which allows formalities staff to enter paper-based applications and manually correct issues and errors with filings. It is a bespoke java application.
Patent Application Management System (PAMS) is the : The primary tool for managing examiner workflow in the national phase. It is a bespoke, Unix/Java-based web application.
As of 2023, AusPatwas the definitive Australian patents search engine which is the interface into the official patent register. AusPatcontains bibliographic and status information from applications submitted from January 1979 on. AusPat also contains International Patent Classification information for the majority applications from 1920; IPC version 8 has been applied to applications filed from 1970 . (https://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/ols/auspat/).
The Office's publication system provides the following functions:
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INTESSwasthe application the office used for managing PCT applications and PCT-EDI for data exchange but moved to ePCT for the management of PCT applications. RO functions are now performed using using ePCT Office Portal, and ISA/IPEA functions have been moved to the custom-built RIO for Patents Workbench. The workbench uses ePCT’s M2M services for ISA/IPEA processing.In 2023, the last piece of data within INTESS, bilaterals data, was migrated off INTESS to PAMS DB/AWS S3, withmanagement of bilateral applications moving tothe newly built bilaterals product in RIO for Patents Workbench. Consequently, INTESS was decommissioned in 2023.
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Legacy systems have been moved off-premises and moved into offsite, commercial, shared data centres and high available containerised architecture has been applied to majority of business-critical applications.
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Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support):
The aforementioned Patent Modernisation Initiative (PMI) mentioned above was a series of projects modernising IP Australia’s back-end patents systems and processes. This has included both infrastructure upgrades and process improvements, such as replacing manual processes with built in task workflows and/or automation, a new citation manager, and efficient reuse of data between systems. This aims to improve examiner and administration efficiency and quality. Focus had been on examiner processes,with work subsequently shifting to administrative processes.
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No comment is made here.
V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF PATENT INFORMATION
Information on the following topics is desired:
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- Government departments and agencies – Commonwealth and State based programs that engage with IP Australia’s target audience. Often utilising These often use a Business Advisor network who have been trained in an ‘Introduction to IP’.
- Universities – early career researchers, undergraduate and industry collaborations, working with accelerator programs, undergraduate innovation courses, and higher degree programs.
- Peak Industry bodies – industry associations that represent small and medium enterprises; providing objective information that can be channelled through the associations, leveraging any Business Advisor network networks they have,.
- Direct – IP Australia provides webinars and resources designed for self-service on IP Australia’s website and promoted through social media and newsletters, aimed at the end-user/self-filer.
- Indigenous – IP Australia has a dedicated set of resources including videos, fact sheets and a call-back service – Yarnline – to support Indigenous business owners engaging with the IP system.
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Participation at relevant industry and government events for face-to-face engagement with small business owners and professional services individuals supporting small businesses.:
- Trade stand/ boothbooths;
- A5 and business card size collateral with QR codes linking to online education resources;
- Presentations and panel participation to demonstrate relevance of IP for business, IP within the innovation ecosystem, IP analytics for Government policy development, IP trends to support small business growth (success);
- Working with incubation hubs, accelerator programs and relevant conferences/expos, IP Australia provides information and demonstrates relevance of IP for start-ups and early-stage businesses.; and
- Developing new content targeted at educating start-ups and early-stage business on commercialisation, exporting and IP protection for digital innovations/inventions.
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Digital experience:The new IP Australia website was launched in late 2022. Following this, in In 2023 the Digital Services Team has been leading a continuous improvement program over six months, listening to customers as they tell usnote what is working and where we improvements can improvebe made.
Education and training: training courses, e-learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.:
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Other activities:
No comment is made here.
VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION
Information on the following topics is desired:
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Other activities:
No comment provided.
VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS
Please include any other relevant information here.
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