In an earlier study we analysed how the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office, the European Patent Office and the Japan Patent Office (jointly referred to as the 'Trilateral Offices' or TOs) assessed reach-through patent claims in biotechnology, under the requirements of 'utility', 'written...

This article briefly describes the legal position in Australia prior to the Ice decision. It then explains the nature of the changes to that position as a consequence of the Ice decision. After dealing with the Ice decision, the recent first-instance decision in Phone Directories will be considered

This article is about the interpretation of legal texts. Its immediate aim is to defend, against a certain sort of originalist objection, the well-known cases that hold that the Australian Constitution, by implication, guarantees certain political freedoms and entitlements. That is not to say...

In the middle third of the 19th century Upper Canada (now Ontario) followed by South Australia passed statutes for the legal recognition of religious bodies. The latter statute has already been the subject of a brief history. This article considers the background to the enactment of Upper...

This paper first briefly introduces the reader to nanotechnology and the potential health risks it raises. It then reviews how nanotechnology is or may be used by the food industry so that challenges that must be addressed by food regulations can be better understood. The application of current...

This article examines to what extent there is legacy of the Commission’s labour standards in the new legislated standards in the National Employment Standards and dismissal protection in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). The Commission’s ‘community standards’, mainly from ‘test cases’...

Australian state and federal governments have historically been at the forefront of developing innovative international policy and regulatory solutions to emerging technologies. Assisted reproductive technologies and genetically modified organisms are two prominent examples here. The question of...

The Australian Sports Commission requires good governance in allocating funds and has developed Principles of Good Governance for the guidance of sporting organisations. Despite the endorsement of most of the content of the Principles by the Independent Sport Panel in its 2009 Review, there are...

This article considers the role of the concept of freedom of communication within the law of copyright in Australia. It concludes that the judicially articulated implied Constitutional guarantee of freedom of political communication is too narrow to act as a control upon the contours or nature...