Marcus Browne, writer for ZDNet.com.au reported that IP Australia has just launched a new open, online database featuring almost 20 years' worth of Australia's patent application records, in a bid to make it easier for Australian (and other) inventors to check if someone else has already had their light bulb moment. The AusPat database will allow researchers to crosscheck patent applications with records dating back as far as 1979.

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A recent WIPO Magazine article reported that women inventors were prominent at the March Ibtikar Fair, the first Saudi Arabi Innovation Exhibition. The WIPO Award for the best invention by a woman was won by Reem Ibraheem Khojah who invented a fully automated process for microscope analysis of liquid samples. It took her just two months to build the prototype for her “automated cylindrical slide microscope,” which, she say, will save time, save resources and reduce health hazards for laboratory workers associated with the disposal of biological material.

Two-thirds of US patent appeal judges may be illegitimate? In a National Law Journal article, Marcia Coyle reports about the possibly unconstitutional appointment of nearly two-thirds of its patent appeals judges and about the petition that raised the issue being filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by a company whose patent was rejected by a three-judge Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences panel. More Patent News