Expert Insights

A recent Federal Court decision means cooperation between courts in different international jurisdictions, which would once have been regarded as entirely novel, may now be a welcome option for liquidators to achieve a more efficient liquidation of insolvent corporate groups, writes K&L Gates' Jason Opperman, Katherine Smith and Catherine Crawford.

A party to a contract may be precluded from enforcing a contractual right if it has acted in a way that is clearly inconsistent with that right under the doctrine of election. Recently, the NSW Court of Appeal applied the principles of election to a complex factual scenario and the lesson from the decision is this -- if you have a right to terminate a contract, you should expressly communicate your intentions to the other party as soon as possible after the right to terminate enlivens, says McCabe Curwood managing principal Andrew Lacey.

The Australian federal government’s proposed legislation to abolish the innovation patent system, Australia’s second tier patent system, was introduced into parliament on July 25. Here, Griffith Hack's Dr Malcolm Lyons and Dr Justin Sweetman tell you what you need to know about the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 2 and Other Measures) Bill 2019.

Notwithstanding a recent increase in competing shareholder class actions, on the whole, competing class actions have remained unusual, and courts have demonstrated that they are well equipped to apply appropriate considerations and principles on a case by case basis, employing a range of case management tools to ensure justice is done without the need for legislative intervention, writes Slater & Gordon class action associate Victoria Sparks.

The important decision by the Full Court of the Federal Court in Calidad Pty Ltd v Seiko Epson Corporation clarifies the position on an area of law that, surprisingly, is still developing in Australia, namely the scope of the implied licence issuing from the sale of a patented product, writes Duncan Longstaff and Roshan Evans of Shelston IP.

We have started to see the Federal Court use its discretionary powers in respect of class actions to order defendants to disclose their insurance policies to plaintiffs. The emergence of these disclosure orders is an example of the flexible and pragmatic approach increasingly being adopted by the Federal Court in class actions, say Johnson Winter & Slattery's Frances Dreyer and Nicholas Briggs.

We have been told for so long that the volume of class action litigation continues to increase at a rapid rate, thus requiring significant legislative intervention, that the title of this piece may (legitimately) prompt at least some readers to check if today is the 1st of April. But this is no April Fools’ Day prank.

In a first for the NSW Supreme Court, Judge Peter Garling last week found that the plaintiff in a class action does not need to have a claim against all defendants, a case that could make life much easier for plaintiff lawyers, says barrister Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz of Second Floor Wentworth Chambers.clas

IP owners need to consider the key or core licensing arrangements over the next six months and consider the competition law implications of conditions/restrictions in these licences, say Ayman Guirguis and David Howarth of K&L Gates.