Intellectual Property laws are often critiqued as a protectionist system that limits innovation and cross-company collaboration. Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry Richard Marles disagrees, attributing Australian IP laws with “a critical role in fostering innovation and creativity, economic development and technological progress”.
World Intellectual Property Day, celebrated on April 26, marks the contribution IP laws have made to a “global pool of innovation”. Marles points to the legal security that IP laws provide for business “to invest in innovation and to trade using their intellectual assets”. For example, Wi-Fi technology used all over the world today can be traced back to a CSIRO patent in 1996, and Australian innovation should only increase as the federal government fine tunes the Australian system. Intellectual Property laws assist businesses to maintain their profit margins whilst investing in technology that is rapidly changing the face of the world.
