Tony Conaghan is a senior lawyer with more than 35 years’ experience in complex agreements and disputes, particularly across intellectual property (IP), information technology (IT), life sciences, and franchising.
Tony also has broad international experience, particularly in the USA, UK, and Asia.
Tony has been involved in many seminal deals and cases. His experience includes cases involving expert evidence and cross jurisdiction co-ordination with an emphasis on technical and parallel issues.
Tony has conducted many successful cases through to the High Court, and has been involved in more than 100 mediations.
Tony’s experience includes advising multi-national companies, the Australian and Queensland Governments, various Government owned corporations, universities, UniQuest, Copyright Collecting Societies, manufacturers, professional service firms, venture capitalists, inventors, and a wide cross-section of public and private corporations.

Tony is the former Deputy Chair for Australia and former Queensland Chairman of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Law Council of Australia. He is a member of various professional organisations, including the American Bar Association, American Association of Intellectual Property Lawyers, the International Bar Association, Licensing Executives Society International, IPSANZ, and the International Franchise Association. Tony is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Tony is also a Notary Public. For details on Queensland Notary Public fees, please click here.

Tony has been named by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific as a recommended lawyer (2015 – 2020) and a key lawyer (2021) in the area of Intellectual Property within Australia. Tony has been recognised by his peers as ‘Lawyer of the Year’ by Best Lawyers in Australia in the areas of Intellectual Property (2017), Telecommunication law (2018), Defamation and Media law (2019) and Franchise law (2021) in Brisbane. He has also been recognised by his peers as one of the Best Lawyers in Australia for the areas of Biotechnology (2013 – 2022), Litigation (2016 – 2022), Telecommunications (2018 – 2022), Alternative Dispute Resolution and Information Technology (2014 – 2022), and Commercial, Defamation and Media, Franchise, and Intellectual Property (2012 – 2022).

Doyle’s Guide has also recognised Tony as a recommended lawyer in Australia in Patent Litigation (2017) and in Intellectual Property (2015 – 2016 & 2020). In addition, Doyle’s Guide (2015 – 2016, 2018 – 2021) has recognised Tony as a preeminent lawyer in the Queensland IP legal market, and a leading lawyer (2018) and recommended lawyer (2019 – 2021) in Queensland in the area of Technology, Media and Telecommunications.

Tony Conaghan’s recent experience includes:

  • Acting for Qualcomm Inc & Qualcomm Australia Pty Ltd advising on protection of Qualcomm’s confidential commercial information including source codes in the Apple & Samsung patent and anti- trust Federal Court proceedings. Qualcomm supply the chip sets for mobile phones. Both Apple and Samsung sought disclosure by sub-poena of Qualcomm’s source codes and other confidential commercial and licensing information.
  • Acting for Konami Australia Pty Ltd (KAP) in defending patent  infringement proceedings brought by Aristocrat for 5 patents relating to electronic gaming machines (EGM’s) colloquially known as the ‘progressive linked jackpot’ systems and bringing cross claims for invalidity of the Aristocrat patents.
  • Acting for Konami Australia Pty Ltd (KAP) and Konami Gaming Inc (KGI ) in separate Federal Court proceedings against Aristocrat for infringement of various KAP & KGI patents.
  • Acting for Land Management Systems (LMS), a landfill gas extractor specialist, generating electricity into the grids, against Landfill Gas Industries & Adam Bloomer in a Supreme Court action for injunctive relief, damages including exemplary and equitable damages, for copyright infringement and breach of LMS confidential information.