Madderns Pty Ltd ABN 35 626 671 467 (we, our or us) is a company registered in Australia and our registered office is at Level 4, 19 Gouger Street Adelaide, South Australia.
We understand that privacy is important and are committed to complying with the Privacy Act (including the Australian Privacy Principles in that Act).
From time to time, we also deal with clients located in the European Union (EU Client). In doing so, we may process ‘personal data’ of an EU Client to which the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies. We are committed to complying with the GDPR in relation to the processing of that personal data.
This privacy policy explains how we collect, handle and process personal information for the purposes of the Privacy Act and, if applicable, the GDPR.
These words when used in this privacy policy have the following specific meanings:
law includes any law, statute, legislative instrument, regulation or legally binding code or directive which applies to us or our activities, including the Privacy Act and, to the extent applicable, the GDPR.
personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable (regardless of whether it is true or not and whether it is recorded in a material form or not) and includes ‘personal data’ of an EU Client to which the GDPR applies.
Privacy Act means the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
sensitive information has the meaning given by the Privacy Act. It is a subset of personal information and includes information such as an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health information, biometric and genetic information.
Types of personal information we collect
The type of personal information that we collect will depend on the nature of your dealings with us.
If you are a client or someone who has contacted us through our website, the personal information we collect from you will usually include the information you submit to us – such as your name, title, business and email addresses and contact numbers (telephone, fax, mobile). If necessary for the purposes of providing services to you, or for providing you with other information (such as advice as to upcoming seminars or general advice concerning intellectual property protection), we may collect other personal information from you such as billing or credit card details, date of birth, nationality and home address.
If you are one of our ‘business contacts’ (e.g. a contact person in one of our suppliers or in a government agency or company with which we deal), we may collect basic business contact information from you (e.g. your name, title and work contact details) and other information relevant to managing our relationship with you or your employer (such as your business account details).
If we are involved in some other type of dealing or transaction, we would ordinarily collect the information we receive about you during that dealing or transaction, provided it is relevant to one of our activities or our role in that dealing or transaction (e.g. if you are a job applicant, we would ordinarily collect the information in your resume and cover letter, other publically available information about you (such as your LinkedIn details) and your referee’s opinions about you).
How we collect and hold your personal information
We ordinarily collect personal information directly from you when you:
- approach or contract with us to provide you with advice concerning intellectual property or other services;
- contact us via our website (at http://www.madderns.com.au) or subscribe to one of our mailing lists;
- write to, email or speak with us or one of our representatives;
- attend our seminars;
- have business dealings with us (e.g. as one of our suppliers);
- apply for a job with us.
We may also collect or receive personal information about you from other sources with your consent or where we are authorised or required to do so by law. For example, if we need to get in contact with you in relation to a matter and we do not have your current contact details, we might obtain your current phone number or postal details from a website, colleague or other contact person.
We take reasonable steps to secure the personal information we hold about you from accidental or unlawful destruction, loss or alteration and unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal information transmitted, stored or otherwise processed by us, including by storing such information on encrypted or password protected systems, implementing cyber security measures and keeping physical records in secure locked facilities.
We generally keep personal information that forms part of our business records for seven years after we have finalised our file, transaction or other dealing for legal compliance, tax and insurance purposes.
If you send us personal information in connection with a job application, we may keep it on file for up to three years in case we decide to contact you at a later date.
How we use and disclose your personal information
Except as set out in this policy or as may otherwise be agreed by you or authorised or required by law, we do not share, sell, or disclose to a third party any personal information collected through this website.
Usually, personal information (other than sensitive information) we hold about you, such as your name and contact details, may be used by us:
- to provide you with the services which you request;
- for verifying your identity for security purposes;
- for marketing our services and products (subject to the ‘Marketing’ section below);
- to provide relevant information about you to IP authorities (such as IP Australia or the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office) if you are required to be named in a relevant application, and typically that information will be published and available on the Internet;
- to disclose to or comply with the requirements of Governments and their agencies, if required by law;
- (if you are a job applicant) to assess a potential employment arrangement or engagement with us; and
- to enable us to conduct and manage our business (such as reporting on our activities, accounts or files in order to comply with law, regulatory or other requirements) and usual business activities, such as managing our files, issuing invoices or recovering our fees.
If you are an EU Client who consented to a particular use of your personal information and you no longer wish for us to use it in that way, you may withdraw your consent by contacting us using the details in this policy.
In addition, we may disclose your personal information:
- to any person you consent to receiving such information;
- to our staff and management (e.g. for business decisions, data processing, marketing and administrative purposes);
- to our service providers, advisors and contractors who assist us to operate our business and provide the agreed services to you (e.g. IT service providers or delivery agents); and
- to any person we are required or authorised by law to disclose your personal information.
Sensitive Information
We do not ordinarily collect or process sensitive information. If for some reason we do need to collect and process your sensitive information in order to provide our services to you or to meet a legal requirement, we will obtain your consent to that collection and use and handle it in accordance with this policy and applicable laws.
Do we disclose to overseas recipients?
If you engage us to investigate, renew, validate, register or protect intellectual property rights in a country other than Australia (international services), we may disclose your personal information to recipients located in that country or any related jurisdiction for the purposes of performing those international services for you.
For example, if you instruct us to renew your patent throughout the European Union, it is likely that we will need to send your personal information to recipients located in each country within the European Union, to the extent necessary to renew your patent.
In addition, when we provide you with domestic or international services, we may also provide your personal information to service providers who assist us to provide those services. They are likely to be located in the following countries:
- United States of America (eg translation services);
- India (eg searching services);
- China (eg searching services, translation services);
- United Kingdom.
We take all reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas recipient will deal with personal information in a way that is consistent with the Privacy Act and do not disclose your personal information to recipients located outside of Australia unless permitted to do so by law.
This privacy policy operates in conjunction with, and does not detract from, any obligations of confidentiality applicable to the terms of our relationship.
Right to access or correct your personal information
Whilst we endeavour to ensure that the personal information collected from you is up to date, accurate and complete, we will assume that any personal information provided by you is free from errors and omissions.
At any time you may request in writing to access or correct or complete the personal information that we hold about you, by contacting us at our address in this policy.
To better safeguard your information, we may require you to verify your identity before complying with your request. There may be situations where your request is refused (for example, where providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals).
EU Clients – Additional rights
EU Clients have the following additional rights under the GDPR:
Right to Object – the right to object to us processing your personal information in certain circumstances.
Right to Erasure – the right to request that we erase your personal information in certain circumstances. However there are also circumstances where we may refuse a request for erasure, for example where the personal information is required for compliance with the law or in connection with claims.
Right to Restrict Processing – the right to request that we restrict or suspend the processing of certain personal information. For example, if you want to confirm its accuracy or the reason that we are processing it.
Right to Data Portability – the right to request that we transfer the personal information we have collected about you to another organisation, or directly to you under certain conditions.
Right to Contest Automated Decisions – the right to contest any automated decision made about you, where this may have a legal or significant effect on you.
Cookies
Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a data file that a website transfers to your hard drive. This enables the website to track the pages you have visited. A cookie only contains information you supply. It cannot read data on your hard drive. You can set your browser to refuse cookies, however, this may mean you are unable to take full advantage of the features of our website.
Marketing
From time to time we may use your personal information (other than sensitive information) to provide you with marketing materials in relation to offers, specials, products and services that we have available.
You may opt out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by following opt out instructions provided in such marketing communications or contacting us using the details below.
Dealing with us anonymously
You have the option of not identifying yourself or using a pseudonym when dealing with us unless we are required by law or a court or tribunal to deal with individuals who have identified themselves or it is impractical for us to deal with you if you have not identified yourself.
How to contact us
Please direct any privacy-related enquiries, concerns or requests to exercise your data-related rights to:
Madderns Pty Ltd
Postal Address: GPO Box 2752, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Email: mail@madderns.com.au
Phone: +61 8 8311 8311
We will respond to your request as soon as practicable and in any case within one month of receiving your request.
How to contact the appropriate authority
If you are of the view we have breached the Privacy Act, the GDPR (if applicable), or any applicable privacy code, in dealing with your personal information, you may make a complaint by writing to us using the contact details in this policy.
We will endeavour to provide you with confirmation as to how we propose to deal with the complaint as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within one month of receiving your complaint.
If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you may make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by visiting the following website and following the steps: https://www.oaic.gov.au/individuals/how-do-i-make-a-privacy-complaint.
Changes to this policy
This policy is subject to change from time to time. The current policy will be made available on our website.
