Demand for protective intellectual property (IP) rights surged in Australia last year, including patents (inventions), trade marks (logos and brands), designs (product appearance) and plants breeder’s rights (plant varieties).
Patent applications grew by 10 per cent in 2015, with trade mark filings rising by a record 14 per cent.
Last year also saw the highest number of design filings for any single year and a 5 per cent increase for plant breeder’s rights to protect plant varieties.
“I am excited to see that recent figures show the demand for protecting intellectual property through patents, trade marks, designs and plant breeder’s rights in Australia is increasing in line with global trends,” said Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy.
“In a globalised economy, the value of IP rights is an important contributor to trade and economic growth.
“The Government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda seeks to promote innovation in Australia to underpin future economic growth and job creation.
“The IP rights that protect new ideas and products provide incentives for innovation and they are also an indication of our innovation outcomes.
“We will continue to monitor demand for IP rights as one marker of the growth of innovation in the economy.”
More detail on Australian IP rights can be found in the latest IP Government Open Data 2016 release data.gov.au. Further analysis of this data will be available with the launch of IP Australia’s annual IP Report in April.
IP Government Open Data provides access to more than 100 years of comprehensive data on IP rights held by IP Australia (the Australian patent and trade mark office).
“The release of such data is an example of government data being made freely available for others to analyse and incorporate into new tools and applications,” Mr Roy said.
