This article originally appeared in the September/October 2021 edition of the Patent Lawyer magazine and is republished here with permission.
The notion of what constitutes “best practice” when it comes to prosecuting a patent application before any national patent office is necessarily subjective, and New Zealand is no exception. However, best practice in New Zealand has varied greatly over the past 4-5 years due to changes in legislation, precedent law, Patent Office throughputs, examination protocols and international/bilateral obligations all remaining somewhat fluid. This creates a real challenge for patent prosecutors to strike an appropriate balance between cost, scope and expediency, and this has remained a somewhat imperfect science. In this article, we play some of these factors (as they currently stand) off against each other – and come up with some ideas as to how attorneys and applicants alike can effectively manage the prosecution of New Zealand patent applications. Read more