The Bill is not intended to be a full policy review of these Acts, or to review the criteria for granting patents, or registering trade marks and designs.
The discussion document is split up into four sections. There is one each for patents issues, trade marks issues, and designs issues. The fourth section looks at the possible use by IPONZ of Artificial Intelligence to make complex discretionary decisions.
The issues we sought submissions on are set out in the discussion paper.
Submissions closed on 2 August 2019. 18 submissions were recieved.
Read the submissions(external link)
What happens next
After analysing the submissions, MBIE provided recommendations for amendments to the Patents Act 2013, the Trade Marks Act 2002, the Designs Act 1953, and associated regulations to Cabinet. Cabinet has agreed to these recommendations.
The next step is to draft a Bill to implement these recommendations. MBIE hopes that an exposure draft of the Bill will be available for public comment by October or November 2020.