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Albert: Welcome to our latest podcast “Understanding the law”. I’m Albert Slocombe and today we have an expert in the law of defamation, Ms Clara Humphries, from the firm of Humphries and Hubert. Welcome, Ms Humphries.

Clara: Thank you, Albert. Please call me Clara.

Albert: OK, Clara. Thank you. This is an area of law that most of our listeners have heard of, especially since there’s been a lot of talk about newspapers defaming celebrities, like American film actor Johnny Depp. But really, most people know little about this area of law. What are the main principles of defamation?

Clara: Well, defamation is a very broad area, and what you’re talking about with the Johnny Depp case is a limited part of defamation.

Albert: How so?

Clara: When a newspaper publishes something, either online or in print, and someone claims that it harms their reputation, the individual could take legal action for libel.

Albert: OK. And what if someone just says something, say, at a huge party. Someone says something negative about you and dozens of people hear it. That’s still defamation, isn’t it?

Clara: Yes, but that would be slander because the defamatory language isn’t permanent in the way it is when it’s published, but, like libel, you still have to show your reputation was harmed.

Albert: OK, well let’s make this simple and focus on libel. So, what does one have to prove to win a case of libel?

Clara: So, that’s an interesting point. In the US, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, but in the UK, the defendant has the burden of proof.

Albert: That’s confusing! I thought the US and the UK were quite similar in their laws. Why this difference? And more importantly for our listeners, what does this difference mean?

Clara: Yes, the US and UK are usually similar in their interpretation of many legal concepts, but libel is one area where there are big differences. In the UK, the defendant, which is typically the newspaper, has to defend the words they used and show or prove that those words were used fairly.

Albert: Thinking about the Johnny Depp case. He’s the plaintiff, isn’t he?

Clara: That’s correct. And in the UK, he doesn’t have to prove anything, but in the US, he has to prove that what was written about him was untrue and also harmed his reputation.

Albert: That sounds difficult to prove!

Clara: Yes, it can be, which is one reason why he filed his case in the UK. He doesn’t have to prove anything, but the newspaper does.

Albert: That a good deal for him, isn’t it?

Clara: You would think so, but to my knowledge, he hasn’t been successful, so perhaps it’s not such a good deal after all.

Anna: Welcome to our podcast “Understanding the law”. I’m Anna Gunther and today we have an expert in the law of equal opportunities, Mr Jason Girgis from the firm of Girgis and Cohen. Welcome, Mr Girgis.

Jason: Thank you, Anna. Please call me Jason.

Anna: OK, Jason. Thank you. So, it’s hard to believe that we are still talking about equal rights and opportunities in this day and age, but here we are.

Jason: Yes, equal treatment is still an issue today, but most governments in Europe, North America and many other places, do have laws in place to protect people from discrimination of all sorts.

Anna: What kinds of cases are you seeing? I know that treatment of men and women in the workplace is not always equal, in terms of pay or opportunities to move up within the company.

Jason: Oh, yes. That’s very true, and that is an important issue. In our firm, we used to deal with many cases claiming gender discrimination, but today we are seeing more cases arising from other kinds of bias, and that could mean discrimination based on religion, ethnic origin, language, or even all those factors together.

Anna: Really? Even language? That’s surprising.

Jason: Oh yes, because if you think about it, language is often connected to our ethnic origins. We typically speak the language of the country we are from, and even if we learn other languages, we may still have an accent that tells others where we’re from.

Anna: Yes, that’s true. I’ve been speaking Spanish for years, but I know I do it with an English accent. But in what ways are people discriminated against because of the language they speak? Why would that be an issue?

Jason: Well, this becomes an issue in employment cases. People didn’t use to move as frequently as they do now. Think about the European Union. There are more than two dozen countries in the European Union, and there are 24 official languages, and actually, even more languages are spoken in the EU. So, if someone is legally entitled to work in one country of the EU, they are allowed to work in any of the member countries. And, they take their language with them.

Anna: That makes sense, but they would probably speak the language of the country they want to work in, right? Why would anyone want to work in a country where they couldn’t speak the language?

Jason: That’s true, but if you think of it from the view of protecting jobs for people of that country, employers may try to discriminate against people who aren’t native speakers of that language, even if they can use the language with a high degree of proficiency.

Anna: I understand. So it isn’t always a question of how well a person can use the language.

Jason: Exactly. It’s often a bias against people who are migrating to the country from other parts of the EU. This isn’t the main area of our firm’s work, but it’s a good example of how discrimination can take different forms.

Anna: Thank you, Jason. That’s a very important point.

Male: I’m Duncan Kirby, and today we are looking at gender equality in the intellectual property world of patents. A recent study on gender bias in technology looked at outcomes of patent applications in Australia and found that having a female-sounding first name seemed to affect the chances of securing a patent. The Australian researchers analysed 309,544 patent applications submitted between 2001 and 2015 and categorised close to one million inventors’ names based on whether they sounded male or female. They found that having a male-sounding first name increased the chances of securing a patent. Clearly, this gender bias can have serious implications for women’s careers as well as anti-discrimination policies in the fields of technology, science, and engineering. But what’s causing it? Reporter Sandra Shelby has more on this.

Female: Thank you, Duncan. Patents are granted in 35 technical fields and the researchers found that more than 60% of female inventors were grouped together in just four of these 35 fields. These four fields are all in the life science category. It’s very hard to get a patent in these fields compared to others, but after using statistics to control for this effect, they still found a gender gap – male-named inventors simply did better than female-named inventors.

Male: Sandra, that’s very interesting. I imagine getting a patent can be important for career progression as well as for securing investment for more research?

Female: Definitely, Duncan. But there are other implications as well. For one, patents with female inventors are more likely to focus on diseases affecting women, so there’s an issue of female health. And research has also shown a lack of female inventors today impacts the rate at which girls desire to become the inventors of tomorrow.

Male: That’s quite important. So, do the researchers think there is gender bias at the patent office?

Female: Well, they don’t know for sure, but they have said they don’t believe it’s a simple case of gender bias…. They think it’s more complex and likely related to the traditional biases that hold back women’s progress in the sciences more generally. They also think country and cultural differences may be an issue, because more than 90% of patent applications in Australia come from non-Australian inventors. In fact, they are largely from the United States.

Male: Well, the first step in fixing a problem is acknowledging it exists. Hopefully this research starts a conversation for people to reflect on their own biases. Thank you, Sandra.