IP Australia has won its appeal of a judge’s decision to allow four Aristocrat patents for its popular Lightning Link electronic poker machine to proceed to grant, with the Full Court finding the invention merely implemented an abstract idea on a computer and was not patentable.
A judge has given the green light to expanded misconduct allegations in a shareholder class action against IOOF, including claims of insider trading and front-running.
A judge has indicated he will approve the ‘very low’ GetSwift class action settlement because the company appeared to be broke, but the law firm behind the case has been pulled up by the court for a previous costs estimate that has blown out by $3 million.
A judge has declined a contradictor’s calls to send an application for a common fund order in a class action against 7-Eleven, which recently settled for $98 million, to the Full Court.
A judge has scolded Slater & Gordon and two Westpac subsidiaries for a “disgraceful” privilege spat in a class action over allegedly excessive superannuation fees that he said had “gone badly off the rails”.
A former partner at accounting firm Pitcher Partners has told a court that he had issues working with Ernst & Young on an audit of law firm Slater & Gordon, calling the Big 4 firm “uncooperative”.
Five years into a preliminary discovery application for a potential patent infringement lawsuit over a biosimilar of its Enbrel medication, Pfizer has partially succeeded in obtaining further documents from Samsung Bioepis.
A judge has thrown out a lawsuit that argued the funding for a class action against two Queensland energy generators didn’t comply with new regulations targeting litigation funders, and said a landmark judgment that held class action funding agreements were managed investment schemes was conceptually incoherent and ripe for a Full Court challenge.
A former partner at accounting firm Pitcher Partners has testified during a shareholder class action trial that he should have questioned statements about the viability of Slater & Gordon’s $1.2 billion Quindell acquisition, but ran out of time because its audit of the firm went “off the rails”.
A judge has knocked back Colonial First State’s bid to warn around 100,000 group members that even if they opt out of a class action against the wealth management firm they might still be bound by the outcome of the case.