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Mallesons - Federal Court aims to streamline Australian patent litigation
Mallesons report that the Federal Court will roll out an intensive case management procedure for patent litigation due to a need to streamline Australian patent litigation. According to Mallesons, the Federal Court has been trialling a case management procedure which focuses on narrowing the issues at an early stage of the proceeding in order to reduce the scale of discovery and limit the amount of technical expert evidence required. The scheme involves having one patent list Judge in each State, who will manage all patent proceedings until the case is ready for hearing, at which point it will be assigned to a docket Judge.
The case management procedure for patent litigation focuses on:
- narrowing the issues before discovery is ordered (parties have to meet to discuss the issues to be addressed by discovery, and the nature of the documents sought, before the patent list Judge will order targeted discovery)
- identifying common ground between experts (parties should consult as to procedures in relation to evidence, such as concurrent evidence of experts and prior meetings of experts to explain or narrow the issues in dispute)
The patent list judge for Sydney is Justice Annabelle Bennett, who has been running the pilot of the scheme for the past 12 months. The patent list Judges for the other states have yet to be announced.
Mallesons - Federal Court aims to streamline Australian patent litigation