Many Australian governments have policies or practices that result in the government, not the supplier, owning the intellectual property (IP) created under a government ICT contract. However, in order to innovate and grow, IP must be in the hands of those best able to develop and commercialise ideas.

AIIA members have identified this as one of the key barriers to doing business with government. It can act as a barrier to entry, significantly increase time and costs to both parties, and result in poor outcomes.

AIIA’s paper Unleashing Our IP Potential (800K PDF), developed by national law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, examines this issue in detail.

The paper finds that both government and industry can realise significant benefits by moving towards default supplier ownership of IP created under government ICT contracts and ensuring that the supplier retains commercialisation rights.

Useful links

A comprehensive list of resources is provided in the footnotes to AIIA’s paper. The following are provided here for ease of access:

• IP Australia Smart Start guide to managing IP in a new business
• Federal IT in IP Guidelines
• Copyright Law Review Committee Review on Crown Copyright (April 2005)
• Office of ICT Commercialisation (Queensland)
• Australian Software Industry and vertical applications markets: Globally competitive, domestically undervalued, Aust Govt Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2006.

Contact

Loretta Johnson, General Manager - Polcy & Government Relations, on (02) 6281 9444.