Response to the Consultation on Streamlining and Simplifying IP Regulation

This submission responds to IP Australia’s consultation on streamlining and simplifying intellectual property (IP) regulation, drawing on input from members AbbVie, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and Swinburne University of Technology. Research Australia links the consultation to its earlier advocacy in the Strategic Examination of R&D and the draft National Health and Medical Research Strategy 2026–2036 on overcoming the ‘valley of death’ between discovery and commercialisation, and notes that university-held IP remains complex to access despite the Higher Education Research Commercialisation (HERC) IP Framework. It broadly supports IP Australia’s proposals, particularly proposals 1 and 2, while warning that tighter response deadlines may disadvantage universities and early-stage ventures with limited IP resources. It identifies patent prosecution and advice costs, long inflexible examination timelines, a narrow definition of licensing rights and uncertainty over AI-enabled interventions as current problems. Its recommendations are to reduce administrative burden through digitisation and removal of low-value compliance, align IP procedures with commercial arrangements such as partial exclusive licences, resolve the treatment of AI-enabled interventions, explore increased block funding for early-stage translation in medical research institutes, adopt milestone-based timelines, allow flexibility for collaborative IP arrangements, and align IP provisions with global norms where this supports sovereign capability.