Patents and Intellectual Property

At this stage, Monash has applied for three patents under the provisions of the Collaboration Agreement.

These are as follows:

Conductive portions in insulating materials

This patent has been granted in Australia as Australian Patent 2013277941 and has also been granted in the USA as US Patent 14/408899.   It has also been filed in each of Japan, Europe and Korea and its status in those jurisdictions is as set out in the table immediately below.

In relation to the European Patent Application, the European Patent Office (EPO) grants European patents for the Contracting States to the European Patent Convention (EPC). The EPO provides a single patent grant procedure, but not a single patent from the point of view of enforcement. Hence the patents granted will not be European Union patents or even Europe-wide patents as such, but be a series of national patents for each of the Contracting States to the EPO that the Applicant wishes to enter into.  On grant, a European Union patent shall, in each of the Contracting States for which it is granted, have the effect of and be subject to the same conditions as a national patent granted by that State.

GO membranes and methods related thereto

This Patent Application was filed as a provisional patent application in Australia and has now progressed through to PCT Status as PCT/AU2015/000698 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) which is an international patent application under the PCT which provides patent protection in each of the 151 contracting states who are parties to the PCT.

The PCT process involves a process of filing the PCT application in accordance with PCT requirements where it then undergoes extensive examination and review to determine whether the claimed invention is patentable followed by publication and, if considered patentable, the patent application enters the National Phase.   In the National Phase the grant of patents proceeds directly before the national (or regional) patent Offices of the countries in which patents are sought to be obtained.

This patent application is at the PCT stage but, on progressing through the PCT process, it is Ionic’s intention that it enters the National Phase in Australia, USA, Europe, South Korea, and Japan in like manner as for Australian Patent 2013277941.

Shear assisted electrochemical exfoliation of two dimensional materials

This Patent Application was first filed as a provisional patent application in the USA and has now progressed through to PCT Status as PCT/AU2015/000698 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) which is an international patent application under the PCT which provides patent protection in each of the 151 contracting states who are parties to the PCT.

Subsequent to the PCT stage it will move to the National Phase in like manner as the other patent applications.

This technology and IP the subject of this patent application underlie the proposed establishment of a pilot plant for the production of produce GO as referred to above: and which has now been deferred.

The need for Ionic to produce GO in commercial quantities is tied to the availability of commercial quantities of sufficiently high grade material from other sources.

Monash can presently produce sufficient high grade GO in its laboratories (using this technology) for Ionic’s present needs.