The creation of a coherent body of intellectual property law in 19th century Australasia is the result of a series of statutes by the local legislature. These statutes are a patchwork of provisions copied from England with some colonial innovations designed to adapt English law to colonial conditions. That combination is unremarkable in itself, since much colonial statute law displays the same interplay of conservatism and innovation. What is striking about the development of intellectual property law in the Australasian colonies is the degree to which it reflected the tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces, between suggestions of a common body of law for the whole Empire and the particularist tendencies of the colonies.