Australian Mud Company Pty Ltd v Coretell Pty Ltd

In the case of Australian Mud Company Pty Ltd v Coretell Pty Ltd, the Federal Court of Australia considered the admissibility of evidence concerning communications between patent attorneys and their clients. The case revolves around whether these communications were privileged and therefore inadmissible due to the protections afforded by the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) and the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth). The respondents argued that the relevant communications were privileged and should not be admissible, while the applicant contested this claim.

The court was tasked with determining the nature of the privilege that applies to communications between patent attorneys and their clients and whether this privilege was waived by the voluntary disclosure of related documents. The key legal issues included the relationship between the patent attorney/client privilege and the legal advice privilege, the scope of the advice privilege, and whether any waiver of privilege had occurred. The court had to interpret the relevant statutory provisions, particularly section 200 of the Patents Act and section 118 of the Evidence Act, to resolve these issues.

The court found that section 200 of the Patents Act provides a privilege for communications between a patent attorney and their client, similar to the legal advice privilege under section 118 of the Evidence Act. This privilege protects communications made for the dominant purpose of providing intellectual property advice. The court emphasised that the scope of this privilege is broad, encompassing communications that are sufficiently connected with the provision of such advice, even if they do not strictly constitute legal advice. The court also determined that the voluntary disclosure of related documents did not result in a waiver of the privilege concerning other communications between the patent attorney and their client.

As a result of the court’s reasoning, it was ordered that the affidavit of Christopher Bradford be redacted to exclude the parts of paragraphs 105 to 109 that were deemed inadmissible. The costs of the proceedings were reserved for later determination.