Patently, big ideas way to go
Aussie inventors making their mark
THEY are the ideas we only wish we’d thought of.
Yet every day, loads of bright spark Australians are coming up with ingenious, outof-the box concepts that have the potential to take off globally – and deliver big pay cheques.
In recent years, the number of patent registrations has exploded.
A record 32,397 applications were granted nationally in 2021 – up 11 per cent on the previous year – and nearly 3000 of them came from Australian residents.
The government agency responsible for administering intellectual property rights, IP Australia, said often an idea needed to be registered in multiple jurisdictions.
Globally, patent applications rose to more than 278,000 in 2022 – the highest number in a single year.
A recent study, published in UNSW Law Journal, showed
more men were having their inventions patented in Australia than women.
Its assessment of applications, filed across 15 years, found 90 per cent of applications had at least one male inventor, while only 24 per cent of applications had at least one female inventor.
“We analysed nearly 310,000 patents and reverse engineered close to one million inventor names to assign them a probable gender,” lead author Dr Vicki Huang, a senior lecturer at Deakin University’s law school, said.
“A male-sounding first name on an application increases the odds of being granted a patent at IP Australia. This is consistent with studies in other jurisdictions such as in the USA.”
Ashley Newland knows how to make a brainwave reality, after hatching the idea of a pocket-sized washing machine ahead of a trip to Tanzania.
“I spent the next year approaching outdoor companies to try to get them to license my invention,” he said.
“Realising that most of them weren’t willing to take a punt on an unproven product, I quit my job as a patent attorney and turned my attention to manufacturing, marketing and distributing the wash bag.
“With revenue now well over $2m a year for the Scrubba wash bag, not getting a licence in the early days was a blessing in disguise.”
He used his expertise in patent law to secure patents for Scrubba around the world.