Cosgrove Clayton: Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 09 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8806. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I thank the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs for his contribution and from the outset say that Labour will be supporting the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Obviously we want to see the detail as is the norm and we reserve our rights to examine that closely but I do share with the Minister on the importance of patent protection. For those of us who have been in business in either large or small organisations it is evident. And one of the biggest costs—and the Minister I am sure would acknowledge this—to an innovative business with an innovative product is the ability to protect the intellectual capital and the intellectual property of that particular item. I recall talking with a patent attorney in Auckland last year very briefly who made a case that one of the biggest contributions the Government could make would be to provide assistance in some way shape or form—possibly resource—to assist companies to lock down that intellectual property. I think the bill’s intentions aims and objectives will assist in terms of streamlining and making that more efficient and hopefully in reducing costs.If you look at it in its most very basic form if you cannot protect the intellectual property—you cannot afford to take out effective patents that are wide-ranging and global which are extremely costly—then the truth is whether you are a large company or a small company somebody is going to eat your lunch. Somebody is going to steal that intellectual property and for many innovators in New Zealand there are a couple of emotions that occur. You want angel seed funding but you do not want to give away the business or you do not want to tell anybody about the product because you are scared someone will come along and replicate it or steal the idea. And there are those jurisdictions in large countries around the world that are pretty prolific you would have to say in identifying products replicating them rushing them back into market and effectively destroying the business of origin that actually came up with that idea or that product.I commend the Minister for this bill. It will go some way to assisting those businesses especially those businesses as our relationship with Australia as the Minister has said grows closer and closer at least commercially. The ease of doing business and alignment of business rules and regulations; this is just another layer. We have done it in law we have done it with banking we have done it with accountancy and this is another layer where we can assist those businesses that are commercially operating with if not our largest then one of our largest trading partners. I think the bill has been widely consulted. I think I would be surprised if there was not a large degree of buy-in from the sector. However I am sure there are aspects of this bill where those who are submitting to the select committee will be able to make some positive suggestions to improve it. I say to the Minister: this is a good effort. This is far more straightforward than his venturing into the world of cartels where—as he crawls under the desk—we have some very interesting proposals around why we should not be aligned with jurisdictions like Canada like Australia and like the UK in terms of imprisonable offences for cartel behaviour.In this bill the Minister makes the case and says we should be closer aligned with one of our biggest trading partners in terms of the regime around patents and I agree with him. Not a few weeks ago he was sliced apart by Guyon Espiner on Morning Report when trying to make a case for the reverse. So I say to the Minister: we are not here to talk about that bill. That bit of fun and that bit of theatre will come later. But I say to the Minister: there is a little bit of inconsistency here you know? Tonight it is going to be consistent with Australia and our trading partners but in terms of cartel behaviour where people’s livelihoods can be seriously destroyed—not only those in business but those impacted by that cartel behaviour—it is: “Oh no we don’t want to line up with the UK all that jurisprudence. We don’t want to line up with Canada. We don’t want to line up with the US. We don’t want to line up with our Australian cousins.”Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: However we are talking about this bill.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Indeed. “We are going to go out there as sort of frontiersmen and women and strike our own way in the world and do something completely different.” So I just take the opportunity given your comments Mr Deputy Speaker to counsel the Minister that before the next bill gets to the House he may want to have a bit of a rethink and somehow take some advice from the whip or others and allow consistency of argument to actually win through.So in essence as I say we support this bill. As the Minister said I do not think it will turn the lights on in the communities at home and it will not be front page news but I agree with him that this is of critical importance to businesses if they want to protect their innovation. There is nothing worse than seeing the look on an entrepreneur’s face when they have invested time money and their own sweat into developing an idea and a product only to see that torn asunder and taken away by somebody who counterfeits it or somebody who just simply gets there before that entrepreneur could get it to market. Because in many cases—in fact I would argue with small business in most cases—they simply have not had the resources or the expertise because this is heavy-duty law to take out patents in multiple jurisdictions. That requires a level of international legal skill that to be fair most business folk would not have and the costs of doing that in varying jurisdictions are prohibitive. There is nothing worse than seeing the look on the entrepreneur’s face as that innovative product is basically stolen from under them so I commend the Government for this.I will be interested in the various views that are put up before the select committee. There does not seem on the outset of this to be a lot of downside in it. I would be very interested in what sorts of costs are going to accrue or be passed on in the trans-Tasman agency to those taking out patent protection. I would be interested to know whether those costs would increase—hopefully they would decrease; intuitively you would think so—but I am sure submitters and others who will be interested in this piece of legislation will want to know at its essence whether this will facilitate easier and cheaper ways to gain patent protection for those products for that intellectual property and for those innovative ideas. We are sort of the old No. 8 gauge wire country. That has translated in the 21st century into being top-quality world innovators. The globe is littered with New Zealanders who come up with the bright idea: the solution to problems that others with more money and more experts have not been able to conquer.So I would support this bill. We will look at the detail of it. I think it is a very good piece of work by the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and I just pray that in his other work with other pieces of legislation i.e. the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill he still holds that principle that we should line up with our trading partners. I wait with bated breath and anticipation to hear those arguments about incentive and disincentive in respect of imprisonable offences around cartels be played out in the same way that he was levelled by Radio New Zealand National on Morning Report just before Christmas. So I commend the Minister for his good works and we look forward to others that follow.