Spruson & Ferguson has been working closely with IP Australia, the Australian Government agency incorporating the Australian Patents, Designs and Trade Mark Offices, for many years in development of a new Business-to-Business (B2B) system for conducting all transactions with IP Australia electronically. The B2B system provides for electronic lodgements / transactions with IP Australia, directly exchanging data and documents between our in-house case and document management systems and those of IP Australia. The new system provides for improved data quality and efficiencies, and provides for immediate acknowledgement and validation of transactions by IP Australia.
After leading a successful trial program with IP Australia, Spruson & Ferguson has become the first firm to transact the Australian national phase entry of PCT patent applications with the B2B system, and expect to be filing all forms of Australian IP applications via B2B shortly.
Filing applications electronically will save our clients the AU$100 fee penalty that is to be applied to all new lodgements with IP Australia that are transacted by traditional paper means.
Through our in-house development of Spruson & Ferguson’s leading systems, we are also the only firm transacting New Zealand national phase entries of PCT patent applications, and lodgement of trade mark applications, with the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) via their B2B system that was developed in close collaboration with ourselves.
Continued development of systems such as these assists us in further improving the efficiency and quality of the services we provide to our valued clients.