The Australian Government has introduced an amendment to the national Trade Mark laws which is designed to give the government room to act on any unintended intellectual property consequences of recent legislative attempts to tackle tobacco use.
In the context of the Federal Government's push to introduce plain packaging on tobacco products the Minister for Health and Ageing, The Hon. Nicola Roxon, earlier this month introduced into the Parliament the Trade Marks Amendment (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Bill 2011 (Cth) (the bill). The bill amends the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth) (the Trade Marks Act) to give the government room to respond, by way of regulations, to any 'unintended interactions' between the pending Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011(Cth) (the Plain Packaging Act) and the Trade Marks Act.
The explanatory memorandum for the bill states that while the Plain Packaging Act prevents a trade mark from being placed on tobacco products or their retail packaging, s 28 will ensure that the operation of the legislation does not affect the ability of trade mark owners to protect their marks from use by other people.
The Minister emphasised the following points:
- that owners of tobacco related trade marks will still be able to use their trade marks except on retail packaging and the products themselves e.g. on business correspondence; and
- that the bill seeks to ensure that applicants and owners of registered trade marks are not disadvantaged by the practical operation of the Plain Packaging Act.
Readers should note that if the Plain Packaging Act is not passed into law the bill will itself fail to become law.
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