Made in Australia – Global Solutions From Down Under

Which country made the world’s first feature film? Where was the first container ship built? Which country has the most Nobel Prizes per capita? Australia, Australia, Australia...

Berlei corset fitting, 1926. Fred Burley of corset company Berlei was convinced the proportions used by most clothes designers were not the same as those of his customers. So in 1926 Berlei and the University of Sydney undertook a pioneering anthropometrical study of Australian female figures, measuring 23 dimensions on 6000 women. A series of ‘types’ and variants was established, and shops were issued with a ‘figure-type indicator’ (below) to calculate the perfect garment for any woman.
World’s first feature-length movie, 1906. ‘The Story of the Kelly Gang’ is widely credited as the world’s first feature-length film. It premiered in Melbourne on Boxing Day 1906, and was later shown across Australia and in New Zealand and Britain. Billed as “over 4000 feet long”, it ran around an hour in length in an era when most films ran for less than 20 minutes. Originally there were no intertitles; narration was performed by an onstage lecturer who would also provide live sound effects, including gunfire and hoofbeats.
Pedal-powered radio, 1929. In 1927 Alfred Traeger joined the Very Reverend John Flynn – “Flynn of the Inland” – who was in the process of creating the first ‘Flying Doctor’ service. Traeger adapted a WWI idea of using pedals to generate electricity, and in 1929 launched the Traeger Pedal Radio. By 1933 these sets were extensively used; a morse keyboard was introduced, and ultimately voice transmissions. This enabled not only the Flying Doctor service, but also the ‘School of the Air’ for outback children.
Black-box flight recorder, 1954. Dr David Warren came up with the idea for a cockpit recorder in 1954, after being involved in 1953 investigations of the mysterious crash of the world’s first jet-powered aircraft, the Comet. Realising that steel wire would hold a recording even if heated to red heat, he built an experimental unit in 1957, ‘the Red Egg’, that could continually store up to four hours of speech, as well as instrument readings. Five years later it became mandatory to fit cockpit recorders in Australian aircraft. The modern-day ‘black box’ equivalent of Dr Warren’s device is now standard in aircraft around the world. The black box is not Australia’s only contribution to air safety. Australian patents or firsts include systems of navigational radar beacons, glide path guidance lights, and Interscan air traffic control. In 1965 Jack Grant, a safety officer for Qantas, invented the inflatable aircraft escape slide, which doubles as a life raft during crashes at sea.
Finding the first quasar, 1963. The first true detection of a quasar was made in 1963 by Australian John Bolton and the British astronomer Cyril Hazard, who was visiting Sydney at the time. Supervising the construction of the Parkes Radio Telescope, Bolton took the crucial 1963 measurements that identified 3C 273 as a quasi-stellar object, or quasar. The Parkes telescope is responsible for other space firsts. Continual upgrades of its surface, computers and electronics have maintained its state-of-the-art research. Other Parkes scientific achievements include discovering magnetic fields in space, and finding more pulsars than any other telescope. Parkes has also helped track spacecraft from the Apollo missions in the 1960s to Voyager and Giotto in the 1980s and Galileo in the 1990s. In 1969, when America’s Apollo XI landed on the moon, live television coverage was relayed through Parkes and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex to the world.
Container ships, 1964. The world’s first purpose-built container ship was constructed in 1964 by the New South Wales State Dockyard. The MV Kooringa was commissioned by McIlwraith McEacharn of Melbourne and the Adelaide Steamships Company as a custom-designed cellular container ship to handle 20-ton containers. A further example of innovation in Australian shipbuilding was the 1969 Darwin Trader built for Australian National Line. This special design of bulk/container ship was ahead of its time in its dual ability to carry general cargo in containers northwards, while carrying bulk cargo plus empty containers on the return southwards voyage.
Cochlear ‘bionic ear’, 1978. Professor Graeme Clark of the University of Melbourne was inspired to research the possibilities of an electronic implantable hearing device by his close relationship with his father, who had been deaf throughout his life. His first cochlear implant surgery took place in 1978, and was a success. In 1981 the University of Melbourne, the Australian Government and Nucleus, a group of medical equipment manufacturers, set out to develop a commercially viable cochlear implant. Cochlear Ltd was established in 1982, and today supports more than 50,000 Nucleus recipients in 70 countries.

Nobel Prizes

Australia has the world’s highest per capita collection of science and medicine Nobel Prizes, the world’s first and pre-eminent international achievement awards. We even snagged one in literature. And the winners were...

1915: Sir William Lawrence Bragg, with father Sir William Henry Bragg, in physics for their work analysing crystals using X-rays;

1945: Sir Howard Florey, in medicine for his work on the development of penicillin;

1960: Sir Frank Burnet, in medicine for his work on immunology, the basis for organ transplants;

1963: Sir John Eccles, in medicine for his work on how nerves and the brain work;

1964: Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, in physics for his discoveries leading to the development of the laser;

1970: Sir Bernard Katz, in medicine for his discoveries in humoral transmitters in nerve terminals;

1973: Patrick White, in literature for his novel The Eye of the Storm;

1975: Sir John Cornforth, in chemistry for his work on the structure of living matter; and

1996: Peter Doherty, in medicine for his work on cell-mediated immune defence while at the John Curtin School of Medical Research.

Innovation today

Today Australia continues its tradition of innovation across a wide range of industries and technologies.

Each year the Australian Museum presents a series of ‘Eureka’ awards, recognising outstanding science-related innovation – though for every winner, there are another hundred Aussie innovators getting their ideas into the international market place. Eureka winners in 2004 included:

Cleaner coasts. Ships regularly dump millions of tonnes of ballast water into coastal waters, bringing an invasion of foreign marine plants and animals. Australia’s Gustaaf Hallegraeff, Geoff Rigby and Alan Taylor have led a 15-year campaign to protect Australia’s delicate waters – and similar areas around the world. The trio developed solutions such as deep ocean water exchange and using waste heat from the ship’s engines to treat ballast water. Thanks to their work, an International Maritime Organisation convention now protects the world’s coastal waters.

Fantastic plastic. A new biodegradable plastic packaging from Australian company Plantic Technologies offers major waste-disposal benefits. Made mostly from cornstarch, mouldable on industry-standard machines and safe for food packaging, it degrades to water and carbon dioxide after just one month in a compost heap.

Intellectual property

Intellectual property – IP – is at the heart of Australia’s smart innovation. Our modern, efficient and enforceable IP system gives global businesses the confidence they need to invest here and to choose Australian companies and organisations as partners in research and commercialisation. A strong and versatile IP system keeps know-ledge and ideas safe, and Australia’s patent and copyright enforcement regime is considered more robust than those of Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and even Japan.

Japan and Australia share a keen interest in improving the IP environment throughout our region. Both countries have joined the Madrid Protocol international treaty for trade marks, so that Japanese and Australian exporters can make just one trade-mark application and use the Protocol for protection in any or all of the other 51 Madrid Protocol members.

Our two countries are also cooperating strongly in the APEC IP Rights Experts Group (IPEG) on the concept of introducing IPR Service Centres in each APEC country. These centres – either online or ‘bricks and mortar’ – will provide information on local codes, laws and other regulations and decrees, together with contact information for government authorities.

Australia’s prototype IPR Service Centre is already online, originally created as Australia’s central IP portal under the Prime Minister’s Innovation Action Agenda, ‘Backing Australia’s Ability’.

>> www. ipaccess.gov.au

Australia is also seeking a role in talks between the ‘Trilaterals’ (the patent offices of Japan, the EU and the US), working to develop a worldwide system for patents that would reduce duplication and costs while improving the dissemination of information.

IP Australia

The Australian Government agency responsible for granting rights on patents, trade marks and designs is IP Australia, recognised throughout the world as a leader in IP public education and awareness programs. It promotes the understanding of IP among companies great and small through websites such as www.ipaccess.gov.au, and through guides such as the IP Toolbox.

IP Australia has already made many IP systems available online, reducing costs for users and allowing great flexibility. Individuals and companies can file patent and trade-mark applications online, and can access relevant patent, trade-mark and designs data through the online services area of IP Australia’s website.

These initiatives and new business solutions continue to enhance Australia’s world-class competitive IP system, fostering our future economic development and providing confidence for our trade and investment partners.

Further information:
>> www.ipaustralia.gov.au