IPA design freedom-of-information — IP Australia Designs Examiners' Manual – 27.4. Publication and file access: Freedom of information

In practice, the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) does not apply to the file of a design application or the file of a registered design. This is because the FOI Act does not apply to documents that are publicly available under another Act – in this case, the Designs Act (see FOI Act, s 12 , s 31 and Sch 3 ). Therefore, FOI requests for documents in design files cannot be processed. If we receive such a request, an FOI officer will contact the requestor to explain that these types of documents can only be provided under the Designs Act (s 60 ). The FOI officer will indicate which documents are available and the likely fees for supplying copies of them. The requestor will be invited to submit a new request under s 60.