Atomo wins Engineering Excellence Award

We are delighted to congratulate our client Atomo Diagnostics Pty Ltd, and its development partner, design firm IDE, as winners of the Sydney Engineering Excellence Awards for 2012 for their MicroRapid Integrated Rapid Blood Test Device, the world’s first hand held integrated rapid diagnostic device.


MicroRapid won the Small Business Award, received a highly commended in the Innovations & Inventions category, and was also presented with the prestigious Bradfield Award. The Bradfield Award is the highest award across all categories and "recognises an accomplishment of exceptional engineering merit which makes a major contribution to the community".

Atomo aims to bring the detection of a range of diseases out of the laboratory and into homes and outreach clinics across the globe. A test for the rapid detection of HIV is the first clinical application being commercialised using the device and is due to be launched later this year.

The integrated design runs the complete test in a single device. This makes it ideal for clinicians to use away from the laboratory as well as enabling individuals to conduct their own blood tests at home. Current blood tests using similar formats require the use of a kit containing five or six items making them quite complex to use and resulting in high error rates.

"Our device makes rapid blood testing easier, more reliable and much more user friendly. This allows testing to be performed by anyone in any setting" said John Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of Atomo Diagnostics.

MicroRapid can be used for a variety of clinical testing including the detection of cardiac and cancer markers, a wide range of infectious diseases as well as consumer focused self screening for common conditions such as Celiac, Allergy, Thyroid imbalances and Anaemia.

The Engineering Excellence Awards Sydney (EEAS) recognise the expertise of both individuals and engineering organisations in the community. Their aim is to create wider recognition for the valuable input of engineers in our lives. Atomo’s MicroRapid device will now go on display in the Powerhouse Museum for twelve months. This display is expected to be seen by over a half a million Museum visitors throughout the year.


Franke Hyland are proud to represent Atomo and assist them in the strategic development of their IP portfolio internationally.

What Is A Design Worth?

Most people are aware, at least in a 'big picture' sense, what patents and trade marks are all about. Trade marks are there to tell you whether the product or service you are buying is 'genuine'. Patents allow an invention to be 'owned' by the person or people who invented it, so others can't copy the idea.

But what of design registrations? They protect the 2D or 3D appearance of many objects, but their scope is quite narrow. Design protection does not travel far beyond the exact shape or pattern that is registered. This means it often seems that the protection of the whole 'concept' that a patent provides is a far more useful way to spend one's IP protection dollars.

Alternatively, the ability to protect against the use of an image or shape that may not be identical, but may simply be confusingly similar, to one's distinctive product, makes trade mark protection seem the better option for IP protection of patterns and shapes.

However, a recent decision of a U.S. jury in the Apple v Samsung battle (U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, No. 11-1846) reminds us of the value that a well-chosen design registration can have. In this case, the jury awarded Apple total damages of USD 1.05 Billion, based on the infringement of a number of Apple patent and designs, and on 'trade dress' infringement, by 28 different Samsung products.

Although the jury didn't spell out precise reasons for each of the damages amounts, it is interesting to look at which products attracted the biggest payouts. For example, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi PC, which infringed some patents but not any designs, attracted damages of USD 833,076 from 1.2 million units sold. By contrast, the Fascinate smartphone, which infringed a number of designs as well, attracted damages of USD 143,539,179 from 1.4 million units sold.

That seems to indicate that Samsung's design infringement was viewed as somewhat more serious than their patent infringement for these products. Perhaps this is not surprising for products whose sales are driven by design and 'coolness'.

Perhaps designs can hold their own in an IP strategy after all?

by Adam Hyland