The-Gatherer-Volume-8

INDUSTRY INSIDER

INTO THE LIMELIGHT from The Green Room It seems that no matter what industry a business is in, the potential for making the same intellectual property mistakes are the same. Why is protecting IP so important? Research shows that in some cases up to 75% of the value of an organisation may be represented by its IP rights or intangible assets. If managed poorly, however, IP assets or related IP issues can cost businesses thousands, even millions of dollars in terms of unrealised opportunities or damage caused to the business or brand.

“ “

CONSUMER DATA RIGHTS SOON TO BE A REAL I TY?

The Competition and Consumer Act will be amended shortly to include specific provisions in relation to consumers’ ability to access their information held by service providers and also request the service providers to transfer such data to accredited third parties. WHAT DOES CONSUMER DATA RIGHTS MEAN? The introduction of CDR will allow two things: • Individuals and businesses (collectively, consumers) can efficiently and conveniently access information held by businesses about the transactions they enter into and authorise secure access to this data by trusted and accredited parties. • Public access to information on specified products that the businesses have on offer. The overall purpose is to provide consumers with more control over their information, leading to more choice in where they take their businesses, or more convenience in managing their money and services.

WHAT ARE THE KEY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS? Service providers will be required to provide consumers with open access to their data on the relevant product terms and conditions, transactions and usage. Consumers will be able to direct their data to be shared with accredited third parties in a format complying with the data standards of the CDR. Service providers must comply with strong privacy and information security provisions of the CDR, and any other consumer data rules that ACCC may roll out in future. WHO DOES CDR APPLY TO? The CDR will apply to the banking sector first followed by energy and telecommunication sectors. Eventually it will apply across the economy. WHEN WILL THE CDR ROLL-OUT BEGIN? Although it is unclear when the CDR will be rolled out to other industries, the Government’s focus at the moment is on the new Open Banking project and the timeline provided by the Treasury contemplates the completion of the roll-out to the banking sector by July 2021.

Albert Ferraloro

How can patent searching save money?

“

You can use patent searches to identify industry and competitor landscape intelligence. For example, you can review a competitors’ entire patent portfolio to see what their recent inventions are and get a feel for their areas of research. This can be done before their products even enter the market.

Brendan Peachey

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S

“

JUDITH MILLER Principal

Welcome to THE GREEN ROOM

JAYDEN LEE Associate

Watch this space!

28|The Gatherer

www.wrays.com.au | 29