Richard Pash
|Special Counsel

Recognised as one of Australia's top intellectual property lawyers, Richard is a Special Counsel in Minter Ellison's competition law, intellectual property and technology team.

Richard has particular expertise in commercial transactions with an intellectual property and IT focus. He advises clients over a wide range of industries including higher education, public sector R&D, IT and telecommunications, food and beverages, printing, media, energy and resources and manufacturing.

With a strong background in corporate, commercial and administrative law, Richard’s expertise includes advising on the protection, management, use and exploitation of all kinds of intellectual property assets; advising on commercialisation ventures; and establishing appropriate commercialisation structures.

Richard acts for a number of public/private sector research collaborations including SABRENet Ltd, South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute, CRC CARE and Water Quality Research Australia. His other clients include the University of South Australia and Flinders University. He advises a number of the firm's private sector corporate clients on intellectual property matters.

Expertise

Professional Background

Publications & Media

Areas of expertise include:

Education

Richard has a strong understanding of the constantly evolving funding and regulatory environment faced by Australia’s tertiary education institutions.
Richard acts for and advises the University of South Australia across a wide range of matters, from governance, policy and legislative compliance issues, to commercial transactions of all kinds. He has also advised the University of Adelaide and Flinders University on governance and other matters.
Information Technology

As part of his wider intellectual property focus, Richard has long experience in the protection of, and commercial dealings involving information and communications technologies (ICT).
He has advised on many outsourcing exercises (public and private sector clients), IT systems development and acquisition agreements and other forms of IT Services agreements in which he has generally acted for the acquirer of the goods and services being provided.
Within the university sector he has wide experience in the area of provision of telecommunications facilities and services. He advised on the establishment, structure and operation of SABRENet Limited in South Australia and has acted on a number of Commonwealth-funded projects for the development, extension and improvement of local and national R & E broadband network infrastructure.
Richard's IP practice has also included extensive involvement in the protection and commercialisation of technological inventions generally.
Intellectual Property

Richard advises in relation to all intellectual property assets including patents, copyright, trademarks and goodwill, plant breeder's rights, trade secrets, and confidential information. He and his team also deal with brand protection, brand licensing and the protection of businesses from IP infringement and other unfair trade practices.
Richard advises on, and establishes commercialisation structures for, universities, research institutions and private sector enterprises. He develops IP management and commercialisation/utilisation policies and drafts joint venture, licensing and other commercial arrangements for the exploitation of IP assets.