(1) to add prior use outside Australia to disclosures that will destroy novelty;

(2) to raise the standard of inventiveness required for patentability (following the case law, it has for the past two decades been low, effectively permitting only combinations of a single reference with the common general knowledge). Under the new standard, obviousness is to be judged against:

a) any single piece of prior art information; or

b) a combination of any two or more pieces of prior art information;

being information that the skilled person ... could, before the priority date of the relevant claim, be reasonably expected to have ascertained, understood, regarded as relevant; and

(3) to impose an obligation to advise the Australian Intellectual Property Office (AIPO) of prior art cited in other countries or found by the applicant on a continuing basis up to the date of grant of the Australian patent. The sanction for failure to comply will be that any subsequent attempt to amend the claim to avoid prior art that should have been drawn to the attention of the AIPO in this way will be unallowable.