Designs Amendment Act 1981 (Cth)

Designs Amendment Act 1981

No. 42 of 1981

An Act to amend the Designs Act 1906, and for related purposes

[Assented to 13 May 1981]

BE IT ENACTED by the Queen, and the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, as follows:

PART I—PRELIMINARY

Short title 1. This Act may be cited as the Designs Amendment Act 1981.

Commencement 2. (1) Sections 1 and 2 shall come into operation on the day on which this Act receives the Royal Assent. (2) Section 31, Part IV and sub-section 36 (2) shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by Proclamation. (3) The remaining provisions of this Act shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by Proclamation.

PART II—AMENDMENTS OF THE DESIGNS ACT 1906

Principal Act 3. The Designs Act 19061 is in this Part referred to as the Principal Act.

Title 4. The title of the Principal Act is amended by omitting "Copyright in Industrial Designs" and substituting "designs".

5. Sections 4, 4a, 4b and 5 of the Principal Act are repealed and the following sections substituted:

Interpretation "4. (1) In this Act, unless the contrary intention appears— 'article' means any article of manufacture and includes a part of such an article if made separately; 'artistic work' has the same meaning as in the Copyright Act 1968; 'Australia' includes Norfolk Island; 'Convention country' means a country in respect of which there is in force for the time being a Proclamation under section 48 declaring that country to be a Convention country for the purposes of this Act; 'corresponding design' has the same meaning as in Division 8 of Part III of the Copyright Act 1968; 'Deputy Registrar' means the Deputy Registrar of Designs holding office under this Act; 'design' means features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornamentation applicable to an article, being features that, in the finished article, can be judged by the eye, but does not include a method or principle of construction; 'monopoly', in relation to a registered design, means the exclusive right to apply the design to an article in respect of which the design is so registered; 'Official Journal' means the Official Journal referred to in section 175 of the Patents Act 1952; 'owner' means— (a) in relation to a design that is not a registered design—a person who is the owner of the design in accordance with section 19 or, if there are 2 or more persons who have an interest in the design in accordance with that section, each of those persons; or (b) in relation to a registered design—the person who is registered as the owner of the registered design or, if there are 2 or more such persons, each of those persons; 'prescribed court' means the Supreme Court of a State, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory of Australia or the Supreme Court of Norfolk Island; 'register' means the Register of Designs under this Act; 'registered' means registered under this Act; 'registered design' means a design registered under this Act; 'Registrar' means the Registrar of Designs holding office under this Act; 'representation', in relation to an article to which a design is applied, means a drawing, tracing or specimen of the article to which the design is applied or a photograph of such a drawing, tracing or specimen; 'set of articles' means a number of articles that are of the same general character and ordinarily on sale, or intended to be used, together, being articles to each of which there is applied a design that is the same as, or that differs only in immaterial details or in features commonly used in the relevant trade from, the design applied to the other articles or to any of them; 'State Designs Act' means any State Act relating to the registration of designs; 'statement of monopoly', in relation to a design, means a statement relating to the representations of an article to which the design is applied that indicates— (a) those features of the representations in respect of which the applicant for registration of the design wishes to claim a monopoly; and (b) those features of the representations that are to be disregarded in considering the extent of the monopoly protection; 'statement of novelty', in relation to a design, means a statement relating to the representations of an article to which the design is applied that indicates those features of the representations in respect of which novelty or originality is claimed. "(2) A reference in this Act to an article shall be read as including a reference to— (a) a set of articles; (b) each article in a set of articles; or (c) both a set of articles and each article in that set, as the case requires.