Intellectual property rights include patents, trade marks and copyright. The Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) grants exclusive rights in the copyright owner, including the right to use, reproduce and publish works. Copyright exists in original works, such as computer programs.

APRA Ltd v Jain (1990) 26 FCR 53

University of NSW v Moorhouse [1975] HCA 26

An Options Paper released by the Department of Social Services last month confirms the government’s intention to abolish the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), returning some of the regulatory functions to the ATO and ASIC and supporting a self-reporting public accountability framework. The submission period for comments on the July Options Paper (1), closed on 20 August 2014.

The Australian Government announced on 5 August 2014 that it will  introduce a suite of counter-terrorism measures to provide security agencies the resources and legislative powers needed to combat terrorism, whether within Australia or carried out by Australians overseas.

Many organisations in the health, aged care and life sciences sector have funding agreements with the Commonwealth. Reduction of funding, non-renewal or termination of the agreement is a risk that needs to be managed. While this article focuses on the Commonwealth’s decision to transition from Medicare Locals to Primary Health Networks, the legal issues remain relevant to all organisations with significant funding from the Commonwealth.

If a researcher, health and medical research institute, pharmaceutical, medical device and/or biotechnology company wishes to become involved in clinical trials and/or health and medical research in Australia, they should be aware of the legislative, regulatory and policy framework, noting that not all health and medical research is a clinical trial.

Big data is a term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured (1). In terms of health care, big data represents all of the data which has been collected on relevant multiple databases. Click here to read more.

Next year is likely to see some significant steps forward for the national ehealth system following the release of the report of the review of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) by the Commonwealth Minister for Health in May. (1) The  review undertaken over 6 weeks in late 2013, and headed by Richard Royle, Executive Director of UnitingCare Health (Qld), made 38 recommendations.

Welcome to the August 2014 edition of the Holman Webb Health Law Bulletin.

Australia has been at the forefront in various areas of innovation in health and medical research. This edition of the Bulletin focuses on innovation in the health, aged care and life science sector with articles on recent developments concerning health records, big data and privacy.

Two recent cases before the Australian Privacy Commissioner (Commissioner) serve as a reminder to organisations of the importance of keeping personal information of clients secure and adequately disposing of information that is no longer in use.

This year's AICLA-ANZIIF Claims Convention program examined the changing nature of the insurance claims business.  The conference covered a variety of issues including business development, offshoring, cyber security, fraud, professional privilege and how social media will change the claims sector.