Logie Jan: Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 09 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8817. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a short call on the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. My colleague Gareth Hughes has given the major contribution on the first reading previously and I recommend that people watch that.My colleague Gareth has informed me that this is a critically important issue for New Zealand and although most of us in New Zealand may not be all over patent law I think most people do understand that if we are going to position ourselves strongly as a country economically as well as socially we would benefit from moving our economy more towards one based on innovation low-carbon greentech and more of a knowledge-based economy than the current low-wage economy centred on the depletion of our resources and forests. So patents are very relevant in that context.What this bill does is three specific things and I am not going to repeat what everyone else has been saying in too much detail but what it does is create a single patent application process and a single patent examination process covering both Australia and New Zealand. I think on my first reading of that I thought: “Oh this is going to bring up issues in terms of sovereignty and the differences between Australia and New Zealand.” But interestingly and encouragingly on closer reading it does not seem to do that. What it does is provide one portal for applicants to file their applications for Australia and New Zealand because 95 percent of patent applications filed in New Zealand are also filed in Australia. So now you will no longer need to file in both places. You can file through just one portal and it will go to both places. You will have to pay just once rather than twice in two different countries. But it will be considered by an examiner in Australia according to their law and an examiner in New Zealand according to our law. There is no change in terms of the status of our laws in that sense; it is just providing an easy pathway in streamlining it and reducing costs for applicants.When New Zealand has I think four times fewer patents being filed than the OECD average I think it is a pretty clear indication that we need to be doing more to encourage innovation in this country ease the way and create the environment for people to start thinking about patents about inventions and about how we could be setting up new projects in this country. What this bill will also do is amend the Patents Act 2013 to explicitly exclude lack of unity of invention as a ground for opposition in the pre-grant process. We have been told that this was a drafting oversight in the previous legislation. Questions have been raised by other speakers in the House tonight who were part of seeing that legislation through in 2013 who have said that they personally will be interested in hearing submissions and examining that point more closely because it was a very thorough process apparently. But drafting errors do happen particularly when it is a comprehensive piece of legislation as that was dealing with a law that had not been changed in a very long time. I do note that some lawyers’ responses have been saying it is good to see this being fixed up.Some people have raised the question about why it is not being retrospectively amended and although the Greens certainly do not usually support retrospective legislation I do think that the point they made or the way I read it was interesting in that it is quite possible that some applications have been filed and not yet examined so that is worth consideration. Thank you.