Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
---|---|
No. of offices | 30 [1] |
No. of employees | 1,000+ |
Key people | Steve Bracks (Chairman) [2] Jacob Varghese (CEO) |
Revenue | AUD$254.1 million (2024) [3] |
Date founded | 1919 |
Founder | Maurice Blackburn |
Company type | Limited liability partnership |
Website | http://www.mauriceblackburn.com.au |
Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, (formerly Maurice Blackburn & Co and Maurice Blackburn Cashman), was founded in 1919 by Maurice Blackburn. [1] The firm is an Australian plaintiff law firm, having represented clients in a number of high-profile cases since its establishment.
Since its establishment Maurice Blackburn Lawyers have acted in a number of cases, including:
Kevin James Andrews is an Australian former politician and member of the Liberal Party of Australia. He was the Member of House of Representatives for the seat of Menzies from a by-election in 1991 until the 2022 Australian federal election. Andrews is a conservative and a Catholic.
George Henry Brandis is an Australian former politician. He was a Senator for Queensland from 2000 to 2018, representing the Liberal Party, and was a cabinet minister in the Abbott and Turnbull governments. He was later High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2018 to 2022.
William Daniel Heffernan, is an Australian former politician who was a Liberal Party member of the Senate representing the state of New South Wales from September 1996 to May 2016.
Maurice McCrae Blackburn was an Australian politician and socialist lawyer, noted for his protection of the interests of workers and the establishment of the legal firm known as Maurice Blackburn Lawyers.
John Norman Button was an Australian politician, who served as a senior minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor governments. He was notable for the Button car plan, which involved downsizing and eventually ending Australia's car industry by reducing tariffs and government protection.
Myriad Genetics, Inc. is an American genetic testing and precision medicine company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Myriad employs a number of proprietary technologies that permit doctors and patients to understand the genetic basis of human disease and the role that genes play in the onset, progression and treatment of disease. This information is used to guide the development of new products that assess an individual's risk for developing disease later in life, identify a patient's likelihood of responding to a particular drug therapy, assess a patient's risk of disease progression and disease recurrence, and measure disease activity.
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Josh Bornstein is an Australian lawyer specialising in employment and labour relations law who has acted in several high profile legal matters. He is a member of the Board of economic think tank, Per Capita and the Advisory Board of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law at the University of Melbourne. He is also head of Industrial Relations at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, is deputy Chair of the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board. He is President of Tzedek.org, an advocacy organisation for victims of child sexual abuse within the Jewish community in Australia. Bornstein regularly represents women who have been subject to bullying or sexual harassment in the workplace. In 2021, Bornstein ran for preselection to represent the Australian Labor Party. Bornstein withdrew from the nomination following an article by The Australian, after it was revealed he had referred to Chris Bowen as a "muppet". Bornstein is said to be considering a second attempt at running for the senate.
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On 29 March 2010, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York found several of the patent claims on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer genes held by Myriad Genetics to be invalid. The patents were initially issued on the basis that the genes were isolated and purified to a non-naturally occurring state, however the court found, amongst other things, that the purification was not markedly different from a product of nature and thus was not patentable. The ruling may have implications for holders of other gene patents and the patentability of other naturally occurring substances. It has the potential to directly affect the operation of the healthcare and medical research industries, particularly with regards to cancer treatment and prevention, and may alter the accessibility of such therapies to patients.
A biological patent is a patent on an invention in the field of biology that by law allows the patent holder to exclude others from making, using, selling, or importing the protected invention for a limited period of time. The scope and reach of biological patents vary among jurisdictions, and may include biological technology and products, genetically modified organisms and genetic material. The applicability of patents to substances and processes wholly or partially natural in origin is a subject of debate.
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Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576 (2013), was a Supreme Court case, which decided that "a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated.” However, as a "bizarre conciliatory prize" the Court allowed patenting of complementary DNA, which contains exactly the same protein-coding base pair sequence as the natural DNA, albeit with introns removed.
Bernard Michael Murphy is a judge of the Federal Court of Australia. He was appointed to the Federal Court in 2011 and was the first solicitor from Victoria to be appointed directly to the Federal Court bench.
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BHP Group Limited v Impiombato was a case heard by the High Court of Australia in 2022, which held that foreign residents can be group members in an Australian class action.