Intellectual Property Point-in-Time Updates

Wednesday 22 July 2020 @ 9.23 a.m.

The Intellectual Property Point-in-Time Service has been updated to include the Treasury Laws Amendment (2019 Measures No. 3) Act 2020 (Cth) (Act 64 of 2020), the Treasury Laws Amendment (Registries Modernisation and Other Measures) Act 2020 (Cth) (Act 69 of 2020) and the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2020 Measures No. 1) Act 2020 (Cth) (Act 75 of 2020).

Act 64 of 2020

Schedule 1 to the Act amends the ITAA 1936 to ensure the tax concessions available to minors in relation to income from a testamentary trust only apply in respect of income generated from assets of the deceased estate that are transferred to the testamentary trust (or the proceeds of the disposal or investment of those assets).

Schedule 2 to the Act amends the Corporations Act to defer the transitional timeframes for existing providers to comply with the education and training standard requiring completion of an approved degree or equivalent qualification and the standard requiring the passing of an approved exam.

Schedule 3 to the Act makes a number of minor and technical amendments to laws relating to taxation, superannuation, corporations and credit. These amendments are part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to the care and maintenance of Treasury portfolio legislation. These amendments make minor and technical changes to correct typographical and numbering errors, bring provisions in line with modern drafting conventions, repeal inoperative provisions, remove administrative inefficiencies, address unintended outcomes and update references, ensuring Treasury laws improve to operate as intended.

Act 69 of 2020

This Act supports the Commonwealth Registers Act 2020 by making various amendments to support the creation of a new Commonwealth business registry regime. This includes replicating the provisions of the Commonwealth Registers Act in the Corporations Act, Credit Act, and Business Names Act, as well as various consequential amendments.

Schedule 2 amends the Corporations Act and the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 to introduce a director identification number (DIN) requirement.

Act 75 of 2020

An Act that makes a number of amendments to the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 (the TG Act). These amendments will align the definition in the TG Act of ‘medical device’, and of a number of other device-related definitions, more closely with the equivalent definitions in the European Union (the EU), to support the harmonisation of the regulatory scheme for medical devices in Australia with international jurisdictions like the EU.

The Act also contains measures to enable the Secretary to provide early, scientific advice to sponsors of registrable medicines about prescribed aspects of the safety, quality or efficacy of their medicines, before they apply for marketing approval, to assist sponsors to better understand the level and nature of information needed to support a successful application for marketing approval, and to reduce delays in accessing new medicines for Australian consumers.

The amendments would also introduce a targeted data protection regime for assessed listed medicines, in relation to clinical trial data that supports an indication (these are statements about a product’s therapeutic use) for such medicines, to foster innovation in Australia’s complementary medicines industry; and make a number of more minor amendments, principally to reduce regulatory burden (including to remove an unintended barrier to access for provisionally registered medicines), improve consistency or make other more minor amendments and corrections.

These amendments have been updated in the Point-in-Time Intellectual Property Service current to 21 July 2020. (NB: Subscription required).

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