Privacy Policy
Last updated: 7 October 2026
About this policy
Southern Cross Intellectual Property (“Southern Cross IP”, “we”, “us” or “our”) provides patent, trade mark and design services in New Zealand and Australia. Our New Zealand practice is operated by Southern Cross Intellectual Property Limited and our Australian practice is operated by Southern Cross Intellectual Property Pty Ltd.
This policy explains how we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information when you visit southerncrossip.com (the “Website”), contact us, or engage us to provide services. “Personal information” means information about an identifiable individual.
We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 (New Zealand), including the information privacy principles, and, in Australia, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Personal information we collect
The kinds of personal information we collect depend on how you deal with us.
Website visitors
- Information you enter in our contact form: your name, phone number, email address and message.
- Technical information collected automatically through Google Analytics (which uses cookies), such as your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you visit, the date and time of your visit, and the website that referred you.
- When you use our contact form, technical information checked by Cloudflare Turnstile, such as your IP address and browser details, to confirm that you are not an automated program (spam protection).
Clients and prospective clients
- Name, job title, organisation, postal and email addresses, and phone numbers.
- Billing and payment details.
- Instructions, correspondence and documents relating to your matter.
- Information needed to file and maintain intellectual property rights, such as the names, addresses and (where an IP office requires it) nationality of applicants, inventors, designers and owners, signatures, and assignment or authorisation documents.
- Information we need to check for conflicts of interest and, where an IP office or the law requires it, to confirm who you are.
Other people
We may also hold personal information about inventors, co-owners, overseas attorneys and agents, other parties to a matter (and their advisers), referees and job applicants.
How we collect personal information
Directly from you
Most information we collect comes directly from you: through the contact form, by email or phone, in meetings, and when you instruct us.
From other sources
Because of the nature of intellectual property work, we also collect personal information from other sources, including:
- our clients (for example, the names and addresses of inventors or co-applicants);
- overseas attorneys and agents who instruct us on behalf of their clients;
- intellectual property offices and public registers, such as the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand, IP Australia and the World Intellectual Property Organization;
- searches of publicly available sources; and
- other parties to a matter and their advisers.
Where we collect personal information about you from someone other than you, we will take reasonable steps to make you aware of that collection, why we collected it, who will receive it, and your rights to access and correct it, unless an exception applies (for example, where the information is publicly available or you have already been told by the source). If you give us personal information about another person, please make sure they know you have done so and that they can read this policy.
Dealing with us anonymously
You can browse the Website without identifying yourself, and you may make a general enquiry without giving your full name. However, we cannot act for you or file documents on your behalf unless we know who you are.
Why we collect and use personal information
We collect and use personal information to:
- respond to your enquiries;
- provide our services, including searches, advice, preparing, filing and prosecuting applications, renewals, oppositions and enforcement;
- check for conflicts of interest and meet our legal, regulatory and professional obligations;
- send you reminders of deadlines and updates on your matters;
- manage billing and accounts;
- operate, secure (including protecting our contact form from spam) and improve the Website; and
- consider applications for employment.
We will not use your personal information for a purpose unrelated to the one for which we collected it unless you agree or the law permits.
Who we disclose personal information to
We may disclose personal information to:
- intellectual property offices, courts and tribunals, as needed to act on your instructions;
- overseas attorneys and agents, where you instruct us to seek or enforce protection in other countries;
- our service providers, including IT, cloud storage, email, practice management, renewal, translation, search, website hosting and analytics providers (for example, Google for website analytics and Cloudflare for spam protection on our contact form);
- our professional advisers and insurers;
- between our New Zealand and Australian practices; and
- other parties where we are required or authorised by law to do so, or where it is necessary to protect someone’s rights, property or safety.
Public registers: Please be aware that intellectual property offices generally publish details of applications and registrations — including the names and addresses of applicants, owners and, for patents, inventors — on publicly searchable registers. This is a requirement of the intellectual property system and is outside our control. We are happy to discuss options, such as using an address for service, before anything is filed.
We do not sell personal information.
Disclosure overseas
We have offices in New Zealand and Australia, and personal information may be shared between them. When you instruct us to seek or enforce protection outside New Zealand and Australia, we will disclose relevant personal information to attorneys, agents and intellectual property offices in the countries concerned, which commonly include the United States, the United Kingdom, member states of the European Union, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India and Canada.
Some of our service providers store or process information outside New Zealand and Australia, including in the United States. The Website uses Google Analytics, provided by Google, and Cloudflare Turnstile, provided by Cloudflare. Information collected by these services is processed outside New Zealand and Australia, including in the United States, and Cloudflare may process it at data centres in other countries.
We take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients protect personal information in a way that is comparable to New Zealand and Australian law. Where you instruct us to file in a particular country, information filed with that country’s intellectual property office will be handled under that country’s laws.
Cookies, analytics and spam protection
Cookies are small files stored on your device by your web browser. The Website uses Google Analytics, which uses cookies to help us understand how visitors use the Website so we can improve it. Google Analytics reports are aggregated and do not identify individual visitors to us.
You can set your browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are sent, and you can opt out of Google Analytics by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on. More information about how Google uses this data is available in Google’s privacy policy.
Our contact form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to check that submissions come from a person rather than an automated program. For this purpose, Turnstile looks at your IP address and browser details. Cloudflare states that Turnstile does not use cookies to collect or store information. If Turnstile is blocked, you may not be able to send the contact form, but you can email or phone us instead.
How we hold and protect personal information
We hold personal information electronically using reputable cloud-based systems and, in some cases, in paper files at our offices. We use reasonable safeguards to protect it from loss, misuse and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure, including access controls, multi-factor authentication, encryption and secure office premises.
We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy and to meet our legal and professional record-keeping obligations. When we no longer need personal information, we securely destroy or de-identify it.
If we experience a privacy breach that is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner and/or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as required by law.
Accessing and correcting your personal information
You have the right to ask for access to the personal information we hold about you and to ask us to correct it. To make a request, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details below. We may need to verify your identity before responding.
We will respond as soon as reasonably practicable and within the timeframes required by law. There is no charge to make a request. In limited circumstances we may refuse access — for example, where the information is subject to legal privilege — and if so we will explain why. If we do not agree to correct information, you may ask us to attach a statement of the correction you sought.
Marketing communications
We do not use the Website to collect contact details for newsletters or marketing. If we send you newsletters or marketing communications in future, we will do so only where you have agreed or would reasonably expect it, and you will be able to unsubscribe at any time. Unsubscribing will not affect communications about matters we are handling for you.
Children
The Website is not directed at children. If we act in a matter involving a person under 16 (for example, a young inventor), we will deal with that person’s parent or guardian as appropriate.
Complaints
If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer first. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and aim to respond in full within 20 working days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to:
- in New Zealand: the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (www.privacy.org.nz); or
- in Australia: the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (www.oaic.gov.au).
Contact us
Privacy Officer: Jane Calvert
Wellington
Email: enquiry@southerncrossip.com
Phone: +64 4 473 7390
Postal: PO Box 8026, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
Physical: Level 6, 204 Thorndon Quay, Pipitea, Wellington 6011
Brisbane
Email: enquiryau@southerncrossip.com
Phone: +61 4 567 89960
Postal: Lvl 2, 127 Creek Street, Brisbane Queensland 4000, Australia
Changes to this policy
We review this policy regularly and may update it to reflect changes in the law or in our practices. The current version will always be available on the Website, with the date it was last updated. If we make significant changes, we will take reasonable steps to tell our clients.