Duncan Longstaff

Principal
Spruson & Ferguson Lawyers: Litigation
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Overview

Duncan is a specialist intellectual property lawyer. He has extensive IP litigation expertise with 15 years in practice.

Duncan’s practice focuses on patent disputes, including in the mining/energy, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, information technology, financial services, and consumer goods sectors.

He is an expert litigator, conducting major complex IP litigation in the Federal Court of Australia and High Court of Australia. Significant cases in which Duncan has played a leading role include patent litigation for Zoetis (animal health), Ecolab/Nalco (industrial chemicals), InfoTrack (ICT), Dyno Nobel (explosives), Fuchs (lubricants), AstraZeneca (pharmaceuticals), Smith & Nephew (medical devices) and ANZ Bank (ICT), as well as other intellectual property disputes for Xiamen Huadian Switchgear Co., Ltd (electrical infrastructure), Australian Unity (employment / confidential information), Global Health Limited (copyright) and many other major Australian and foreign clients.

Duncan has developed a significant practice in conducting oppositions in the Australian Patent Office, including for client such as James Hardie (building products), Zoetis (animal health), Johnson & Johnson (pharmaceuticals), Dyno Nobel (explosives), Manildra Milling Corporation (food technology), EMD Millipore (membrane products), Telstra (ICT), and Visa (ICT).

Duncan is a member of the Law Council of Australia’s Intellectual Property Committee. He is also a member of the Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand and the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, and regularly attends conferences of other leading IP societies including the International Trade Mark Association, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and BIO.

Duncan was named in The Legal 500 Asia Pacific as a Next Generation Lawyer in 2018 and 2019, respectively.


Duncan Longstaff's Insights
The 2023 IP year in review, and predictions for 2024
In Australia, February signals a return from the beach, children back to school after a long summer break and of course the usual traffic woes! At Spruson & Ferguson Lawyers,...
In Australia, February signals a return from the beach, children back to school after a long summer break and...
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The practice of incorporation by reference in patent specifications
Key takeaways Cross-references to other documents merely to provide background information or prior art, or to illustrate subsidiary features, are not objectionable provided that the document was publicly available on...
Key takeaways Cross-references to other documents merely to provide background information or prior art, or to illustrate subsidiary features, are...
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Inventive concept is at the heart of entitlement
Introduction Following on from our previous article where we looked at the options to contest entitlement at the Australian Patent Office under the Patents Act 1990 (under section 36 and...
Introduction Following on from our previous article where we looked at the options to contest entitlement at the Australian Patent...
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