Australian IP report 2025
Standard patent applications and grants
In 2024, a total of 30,478 standard patent applications were filed in Australia, 3.3% fewer than in 2023. The result reflects reduced patenting in Australia from the United States and several other major countries of origin (e.g., Japan and the United Kingdom) driving fewer filings in pharmaceuticals and medical technology. This has been partially offset by increased applications in biotechnology, from across locations of origin, and growth in filings from China, notably for electric power technologies and machines and transport technologies.
Figure 2.1 Standard patent applications and grants in Australia, 2013 to 2024
A patent is enforceable in Australia only after it has been examined, assessed as being novel, industrially useful and non-obvious, and granted. In Australia, applicants must request examination within 5 years of filing the application in Australia or the application will lapse.1
In 2024, grants of standard patents in Australia increased markedly, to 1.24 times their level in 2023, at 19,276 in total. Several factors have contributed to this increase in grants:
- an increase in standard patent filing levels that occurred after the COVID-19 shock, from 2021 (see Figure 2.1). In practice, the median time from when an application is filed in Australia to its final acceptance for grant is 2.8 years, based on 2020 filings (see Chapter 1). As such many applications filed in 2021 will be granted in 2024.
- improvements to examination productivity.
A previous spike in grants is observed in 2015–2017 (Figure 3.1). This resulted in part from a 2013 spike in applications and a simultaneous spike in requests from applicants to begin substantive examination of their patent applications in 2013.2
Applicants were motivated by Australia’s Raising the Bar legislative reforms, which narrowed the scope of patent protection available in Australia.3 The new law applied to all applications requested for examination after April 2013. To ensure their applications were examined under the previous law, many applicants brought their examination requests forward, resulting in a moderate spike in applications in 2013. This historic spike in grants also followed a temporary fall in requests for IP Australia to conduct international type searches, which increased office capacity to produce examination reports.
- Under Australian legislation, a patent is examined only once the applicant has requested examination. The request can be voluntary or result from the Commissioner of Patents directing an applicant to request examination.
- IP Australia received 1.8 times the average number of examination requests in 2013 than the average number from over the previous 5 years.
- Kollmann, T., Palangkaraya, A., Sarwar, A., Webster, E., Anglim, C., & Falk, M. (2024). Raising the Bar Reforms: Measuring the Impact of Relative Patent Scope. IP Australia Economic Research Paper Series 14.