IPONZ Business Evaluation

Over the next three years proposed legislative changes arising from the Patents Bill and the Trade Mark (International Treaty and Enforcement) Amendment Bill will significantly change the way in which IPONZ undertakes its regulatory role.
These pieces of legislation seek to bring New Zealand’s intellectual property legislation into line with global norms but will result in a significant increase in the effort required to process a Patent application and will add complexity in managing a Trade Mark application in the world wide forum under the Madrid Protocol.

IPONZ understands that a high quality and timely examination for intellectual property rights are vital to contribute to the full economic potential for New Zealand, and therefore it is important that IPONZ looks closer at its operations with a view to planning for these changes. For this reason PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) was engaged to conduct an independent business evaluation to look primarily at the challenges that IPONZ will face over the next couple of years and to help determine the operational, funding and revenue impacts that the changes might present.

The evaluation process and findings are detailed in PWC’s report which is available here.

It is important to remember that the recommendations in the report are being considered and worked through.