Industry & Research
IP law opens up patents for research
Changes to Australian intellectual property laws will help clear up legal ambiguities for researchers working in areas involving already patented discoveries, says the National Health and Medical Research Council. The Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Bill 2012 was passed by the House of Representatives on March 20 and is now waiting assent from the Governor-General.
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What the articles does not say is whether researchers can improve a patented invention and then give away the improved invention for free, but encumbered with licensing terms. The prototypical example is releasing an improved version of software as open source, even though some of the methods underlying the software may be patented.