Members of ACIP

Chair

Mr Leon Allen

Mr Leon Allen Mr Allen is a patent attorney and a partner with Davies Collison Cave. He is currently Chairman of the Firm's National Management Board. Mr Allen has extensive experience in the drafting and prosecution, in Australia and overseas, of patent applications. He also has extensive experience in opposition proceedings before the Australian Patent Office and in infringement actions for enforcement of patents in Australia. He started in the patent attorney profession in 1981 and joined Davies Collison Cave in 1995.Z

Mr Allen is immediate past President of the Institute of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys of Australia (IPTA) having been a member of the governing council since 1992. He is also a Fellow of the International Federation of Patent Attorneys (FICPI) Academy of Education and teaches patent drafting in Europe. He has also held numerous other positions including Australia's International Vice President of the Asian Patent Attorneys Association and member of the Advisory Board of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA). Mr Allen has been a member of the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) since November 2006 and was appointed as Chair of ACIP in January 2009.

Members

Ms Julia Banks

Ms Julia Banks Ms Banks is the General Counsel of GlaxoSmithKline Australasia and is the head of the Legal and Compliance Directorate. Her experience is broad having worked in various roles in Legal, Compliance and Corporate Affairs across the pharmaceutical, FMCG/consumer products industries and in the manufacturing sector in Australia, New Zealand and across the Asia Pacific region.

Prior to joining GlaxoSmithKline Ms Banks worked for both Kraft Foods Australasia and Kraft Foods Asia Pacific in varying roles such as Chief Counsel, Company Secretary and as Director of Corporate Affairs. Prior to her employment with Kraft, she worked as Corporate Counsel for Hoechst Australia before which she worked for several years in private practice principally in the areas of corporate law and litigation

Ms Banks graduated from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degree. She is a member of the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association, the Law institute of Victoria, and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She was formally a Director of the Australian Made Limited (“AML”) company. Ms Banks was appointed to ACIP in January 2010.

Dr Noel Chambers

Dr Noel Chambers Dr. Chambers is the Director of Philanthropy with Research Australia, a national not-for-profit alliance of organisations and companies that are committed to making health research a higher national priority. He is also a founding Director of Centuris Pty Ltd a boutique consulting and contract management company assisting with the translation and commercialisation of research and innovations.

Dr. Chambers has more than 20 years experience in start-up companies, commercial research and biotechnology. In the early 90’s whilst at The University of Sydney his research into Type II diabetes led to a commercial collaboration. He then moved into industry where he held management positions in research and business development before becoming the CEO of a number of listed and unlisted biotechnology/health related companies. Dr Chambers has been a member of ACIP since January 2009.

Professor Brian Fitzgerald

Professor Brian Fitzgerald Professor Fitzgerald BA (Griff) LLB (Hons) (QUT) BCL (Oxon.) LLM (Harv.) PhD (Griff) studied law at the Queensland University of Technology graduating as University Medallist in Law and holds postgraduate degrees in law from Oxford University and Harvard University. He is well known in the areas of Intellectual Property and Internet Law. From 1998-2002 Professor Fitzgerald was Head of the School of Law and Justice at Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia and from 2002–2007 was appointed as Head of the School of Law at QUT in Brisbane, Australia.

Professor Fitzgerald is currently a specialist Research Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation at QUT and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. In 2009 Professor Fitzgerald was appointed to the Australia Government’s “Government 2.0 Taskforce”. In 2009-2010 he led the (Australian) Peer to Patent Project. Professor Fitzgerald was appointed to ACIP in January 2010.

Mr Michael Gilbert

Mr Michael Gilbert Originally qualified as a Mechanical Engineer, and working in research and manufacturing for 16 years, Mr Gilbert graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1997 with an MBA and established Adelaide Consulting.

In 2002, he project-managed the establishment of the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG). Since 2003, Mr Gilbert has been the General Manager and also is the Company Secretary of ACPFG. ACPFG now has 130 staff and students, 23 active patent filings and around 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications. Many ACPFG projects have been established with international partners.

Mr Gilbert was on the Board of AusBiotech from 2004 to 2010 and has been a member of ACIP since November 2006.

Mr Adam Liberman

Mr Adam Liberman Mr Liberman has been a Professorial Visiting Fellow at the University of NSW Law Faculty since 2009.

He has over 30 years experience as a lawyer in the intellectual property, licensing, commercial and corporate arenas. He has advised a wide spectrum of parties involved in the innovation process including inventors and creators of copyright works, research institutes, universities, start-ups, CRC participants, venture capitalists, private equity investors, investment banks, SMEs, large Australian corporations and multinational companies. Mr Liberman’s positions have included:

Partner, Freehills;
General Counsel and General Manager Intellectual Property, CSIRO;
Member NSW Innovation Council;
President Licensing Executives Society International.

Mr Liberman has written extensively on intellectual property topics in reference publications, and in local and international journals. He has given presentations on intellectual property, its management, licensing, commercialisation, use in R&D environments and technology transfer at the request of organisations such as the Australian Graduate School of Management, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the Australian Business Foundation, the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation and at APEC IP events.

He is Director Intellectual Property at Brand Finance and a theatre producer. Mr Liberman has been a member of ACIP since January 2009.

Dr Tracie Ramsdale

Dr Tracie Ramsdale Dr Ramsdale originally trained as a synthetic organic chemist and obtained a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Queensland. After a successful career as a Principal Investigator and Commercial Manager of the Centre for Drug Design and Development at the University of Queensland, she co-founded Alchemia, an ASX-listed biotechnology company, specialising in drug discovery and development.
Dr Ramsdale served as the CEO of Alchemia from its inception in 1998 until 2007. During this time, she was responsible for:

Raising $85M in funding from various sources—including venture capital, public financing and government grants
Leading the company through a successful IPO in December 2003
Negotiating license agreements and collaborations with major chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies
Completing the first merger between two publicly listed Australian biotechnology companies (May 2006)
Managing the development of the company’s first product, due for market launch in 2011.

Since stepping down from the CEO role in April 2007, Dr Ramsdale has maintained an active involvement in Alchemia through her positions as a non-executive director and Chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr Ramsdale has been a member of ACIP since January 2009.

Dr Derek Rogers

Dr Derek Rogers Dr Derek Rogers is a Senior Systems Engineer / Deputy Systems Engineering Manager for the Amphibious Assault Ships project with Saab Systems, which he joined in October 2009 after five years with BAE Systems as the Product Development Manager / Deputy Senior Technical Authority for an Electronic Warfare Self Protection Project.

Prior to joining BAE Systems, Dr Rogers worked for six months with the University of South Australia where he is now an Adjunct Associate Professor in Systems Engineering, and prior to that for the Motorola Australia Software Centre for five years and the Centre for Telecommunications Information Networking for three years. Dr Rogers holds four University degrees in engineering, mathematical and computer sciences and science and technology commercialisation. He has published over 30 papers and been the recipient of a number of prestigious awards. Dr Rogers was appointed to ACIP in January 2010.

Ms Vicki Tutungi

Ms Vicki Tutungi is Managing Director of ProLearn Corporation Pty Ltd. ProLearn is an education and training brokerage firm established in May 2011. Prior to establishing ProLearn Ms Tutungi was the CEO of Optiscan, a publicly listed biomedical device company. Before joining Optiscan she worked for over a decade in CSIRO. Her roles included establishment of the Nanotechnology Flagship and Chief of the Division of Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technologies. Ms Tutugi has extensive experience in managing intellectual property and has held a number of executive and non-executive board roles. Ms Tutungi was appointed to ACIP in January 2010.

Professor Beth Webster

Professor Beth Webster Professor Webster is an economist and Director of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia (IPRIA) and Professorial Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (University of Melbourne). She has a PhD in economics from the University of Cambridge and degrees in economics from Monash University. She has published widely on the economics of innovation and intellectual property, as well as more general research on the performance of Australian enterprises. Professor Webster is currently a member of ACIP, a panel member of the Higher Education Base Funding Review and previous Commissioner for the Victorian State Services Authority and member of the Bracks’ Review into the Automotive Industry. Professor Webster has been a member of ACIP since January 2009.

Ex-Officio Members

Mr Philip Noonan

Mr Philip Noonan The Director General of IP Australia, Philip Noonan, is responsible to the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Resources for the effective, efficient and ethical use of the agency's resources.

Mr Noonan has held legal, policy and administrative positions in the Australian Public Service over many years. He worked in the Attorney-General's Department from 1982 to 1996, and was head of the Consumer Affairs Division in the Attorney General's Department from 1995 to 1998.

He was the head of the Tourism Division in the former Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources from 2005 to 2008, before taking up his current position. During his time with IP Australia, Mr Noonan has reduced substantially the backlog of outstanding patent applications and greatly strengthened arrangements to ensure the quality of patent and trademark examination.

Mr Noonan has a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Laws and is admitted to practice as a solicitor and barrister in Victoria. Mr Noonan has served on ACIP since January 2008.

Mr Ken Pettifer

Mr Ken Pettifer Mr Pettifer is Head of the Innovation Division in the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. The Division is responsible for advising the Government on innovation policy and also has responsibility for Commercialisation Australia and for the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries. Prior to this he was head of eBusiness Division in the Department, including Chief Information Officer, and head of the Manufacturing Engineering and Construction Division.

Mr Pettifer’s responsibilities have spanned a range of industry sectors including the food industry, automotive, defence, building, space and pharmaceuticals and involved policy advice on industry development, trade, investment, international collaboration and science and technology. His career has included the Treasury, Productivity Commission, the Department of Business and Consumer Affairs and the Innovation and Industry Department. He has been a member of the Building Codes Board, the Government’s Chief Information Officer Committee and the Defence Industry Advisory Council. He is currently a member of ACIP and the National Medicines Policy Executive.

He has a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the Australian National University. Mr Pettifer has served on ACIP since July 2009.