The traditional function of the judicial process in adjudicating upon the existence of rights and obligations between defined persons or classes of persons will continue to be discharged by the judiciary. There are risks involved in an extension of the role of judges beyond that traditional function. Mr Justice Brennan argues that these risks must in appropriate cases be accepted, otherwise the judiciary itself may become irrelevant to the community which it serves.

With the development and widespread use of computer technology difficult questions relating to the legal protection which may be given to computer “software” must be considered. In this article Mr Lahore examines the existing law relating to intellectual property and discusses whether the Patents Act 1952 (Cth) and the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), as they have been and may be inter-preted and applied, provide suitable and adequate protection for this computer software.

Over the last three years the Commonwealth has enacted four statutes with the aim of overcoming some of the deficiencies which exist at common law in the reviewing of administrative action. These are the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth), the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Amendment Act 1977 (Cth), the Ombudsman Act 1976 (Cth) and the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth). This article examines in detail the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth) in order to determine whether the common law rights and remedies have been improved.

In this article the author exhaustively examines the decisions of both the Trade Practices Commission and Tribunal and abstracts from them a number of general conclusions which are of invaluable assistance in interpreting section 50 of the Trade Practices Act. This discussion is particularly apposite in the present economic climate when the merger is increasingly popular, especially as the Act has only been recently amended. The author concentrates on “market definition” in all its permutations and discusses the various indicia of altered competition levels and the consequent likelihood of success of a merger application. As the author points out in his conclusion, attention to such details amply repays the effort involved when viewed against the backdrop of sanctions which the Act contains against those who infringe it.