David Shavin KC

Practice Areas

David Shavin KC has practiced in the fields of Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Australia for over 45 years and in New Zealand since 1994. He was appointed a QC (now KC) in Australia in 1993 and in New Zealand in 1994.

He apears predominantly in trials and appeals in the Federal Court of Australia and has conducted several appeals in the High Court of Australia. He has conducted trials in the High Court of New Zealand, and appeals in Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of New Zealand.

His Intellectual Property work has involved a large number of both trials and appeals. His patent work has focussed predominantly on life sciences patents and computer implemented inventions but has encompassed all areas of patent infringement and validity, and especially issues as to inventive step what constitutes a manner of manufacture in Australia.

His trade marks and confidential information work has concerned all aspects of the validity, use and infringement of trade marks, including paricularly colour and shape marks post the 1995 Act.

David has been involved in many leading competition cases, especially those concerning the abuse of market power, anti-competitive conduct and the nature of the penalty regime in both Australia and New Zealand. He has been involved in a large number of merger matters.

In the High Court, the patent matters in which he has appeared have involved nature of patent eligible inventions (manner of manufacture) especially for patents related to isolated nucleic acids and computer implemented invention, whether a patentee's rights are exhausted after first sale and the leel of inventive step. In the area of competition law, his cases have concerned cartel conduct, price fixing, and explored the essential nature of s.46, the nature of predatory pricing and the extent to which it is caught by s.46.

In New Zealand, his cases have involved the abuse of a dominant position, input pricing and interchange fees in the banking sector.

He appears for both innovator and generic companies in life sciences matters, and for and against the regulator in competition matters.

Career

David Shavin was admitted to practice in Victoria in 1977, signed the Victorian Bar roll in 1978 and took silk in 1993 in Victoria. He is also admitted to the State Courts in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania. He was admitted to practice in New Zealand in 1994 and appointed a Queens Counsel (now Kings Counsel) in 1994.

Between 1983 and 1992 and in 1995, he lectured with the late Professor Maureen Brunt and others in post-graduate multi-disciplinary course in Advanced Trade Practices (Competition law and economics) in LLM, M.Ec and MBA programs conducted successively at Monash and Melbourne Universities and at the Melbourne Business School.

Professional Memberships

He is a member of IPSANZ, IPTA and has been a member of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia committees on Intellectual Property and Trade Practices (Competition) since about 1983.

He is also a member of the General Law Section of the Law Council and the Practice and Procedure Liasion Committees for both the Federal Court of Australiaand the Federal Circuit Court (and its predecessors) since July 1998.

He is and has been since about 1989 a member of the Competition Law and Policy Institute of New Zealand.