We have garnered a leading reputation as one of Australia’s most highly regarded practices in the field of Intellectual Property law. Our firm has substantially contributed to developing new areas of the law in this field, such as the introduction of moral rights legislation, film and media Director’s rights introduced in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), amendments to the management and regulation of payments to Artists and others whose work is reproduced, Droit de suit (resale royalty), We pioneered model film prospectus and public offer documentation for the raising of capital, for the production of film and theatre productions. Our firm has also been involved, and continues to be involved, in high profile litigation such as the protection of the right of integrity for writers and directors, protection of commercial interests for producers and production companies securing distribution and sales agency rights and income returns, , protection of film and media directors’ and employee’s rights, chain of title clearances, participant releases, claims on Errors and Omission insurance, injunctions prior to film and media release, defamation litigation (see note elsewhere), complex title and trademark registrations, opposition to registration of competing trademarks, applications against rejection of trademarks and enforcement of trademark protection against infringements.
As a specialist firm in this area, our intellectual property lawyers have sophisticated knowledge of the core and related areas:
- Copyright
- Trade Marks
- Patents Act
- Designs
- Passing Off
- Breach of Confidence
- Trade Secrets
- Misleading and Deceptive Conduct
- Moral Rights and Performers Rights
- Tax aspects of Intellectual Property
- Personality Rights in the USA, European Droit Morale and Droit De Suite law and Format Rights.
- International principles of intellectual property harmonisation, the Uniform Copyright Convention and Berne Convention
- The intersection of Intellectual Property, Information Technology, Privacy and New Media.