Category Archive

Authors: Judith Miller, Stephanie Faulkner and Bindhu Holavanahalli The Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) has been partially successful in its misleading and deceptive conduct case against prominent Australian wine educator, Jayne Powell (aka Champagne Jayne). The case related to the use of the term ‘Champagne’ by Ms Powell in relation to wines which were not from the Champagne …

Wrays would like to remind its franchisor clients of the upcoming deadline for updating their franchise disclosure documents and for preparing marketing fund statements.  Under the new Franchising Code of Conduct, which came into effect on 1 January 2015, franchisors must meet new Code requirements in relation the information that they provide to their prospective and established franchisees. Up to now, …

Authors: Judith Miller & Bindhu Holavanahalli A Bill to extend the unfair contract protections of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) for consumer contracts to standard form small business contracts has now passed both houses of parliament.[1] The new regime will now commence 12 months after Royal Assent, which is expected to be approximately late October 2016. The protections A term of …

D’Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc [2015] HCA 35 The High Court of Australia has today handed down its decision in D’Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc [2015] HCA 35, unanimously striking down the validity of the first three claims of Myriad Genetics Inc’s (Myriad) patent.  Those claims related to isolated nucleic acid sequences of the BRAC1 gene, mutations of which have …

Authors: Judith Miller and Bindhu Holavanahalli The Federal Circuit Court has struck down the validity of a ‘no refund’ clause in a cruise contract under the unfair contract term provisions of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) in its recent decision Ferme & Ors v Kimberley Discovery Cruises Pty Ltd [2015] FCCA 2384.   Background Kimberley Discovery Cruises Pty Ltd (KDC) …

Authors: Judith Miller & Bindhu Holavanahalli A Bill to extend the unfair contract protections of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) for consumer contracts to standard form small business contracts passed the Senate yesterday with major amendments which will substantially expand the operation of the regime. The Senate amended the Bill to extend the definition of ‘small business contract’ by increasing the …

Author: Peter Caporn Shaun Gregory , Senior VP of Strategy, Science and Innovation at Woodside Energy Ltd said as much at Networking WA’s recent breakfast event “The Resources Sector and Technology and Innovation”, which was proudly supported by RIG for the second year in a row.  Peter Caporn, Principal of Wrays and Resources Group Head, attended with a number of …

Authors: Judith Miller and Bindhu Holavanahalli A Bill to extend the unfair contract protections of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) for consumer contracts to standard form small business contracts passed the House of Representatives yesterday.[1] Major points Unfair contract term protections to be extended to small business Regime to apply  to contracts where:      At least one party employs less than …

Author: Peter Caporn The potential importance and impact of prior third party use of an invention, together with careful attention to patent specification drafting, have been highlighted in a recent Australian patent opposition between Rio Tinto Alcan International Ltd and Norsk Hydro ASA [2015] APO 40 (Norsk Hydro is the patent applicant). In this Australian patent opposition decision, the full …