The government of West Australia said it was taking the step, despite warnings by Aboriginal community leaders that an appeal would be a setback to relations between Australia's native inhabitants and its rulers.
Announcing the controversial decision to challenge the shock September 19 decision that prompted Aboriginal leaders to set their sights on other major Australian cities, West Australia's Deputy Premier Eric Ripper said the court standards set in the ruling were radically different from previous decisions.
"We owe it to all West Australians to test whether the new standards is to prevail or whether it contains errors," Ripper said.
"To do otherwise would risk the consensus across the community that has enabled us to reach native title settlement without excessive or costly litigation.
"A clear and consistent understanding of native title law provides a guide for the settlement of all native title claims by agreement," Ripper told reporters.
Officials of the government of West Australia, of which Perth is the capital, would however meet leaders of the Noongar Aboriginal community in a bid to negotiate a deal, Ripper said.
"The government wants to ensure a very good outcome for Noongar people in Western Australia through this process," he said.
He said his government approached the appeal with reluctance because it remained committed to positive native title outcomes.
"Our hearts are reluctant but our head tells us we have to go ahead," he said.
"This decision has threatened to overturn the successful model that we have used to determine native title."
In his ruling on Perth, Federal Court Judge Murray Wilcox found that the Noongar people had proven native title over more than 6,000 square kilometres (2,300 square miles) covering Perth and its surrounds despite being largely dispossessed by white settlement in 1829.
The WA government however quickly condemned the ruling, saying it was "highly inconsistent" with previous native title rulings, while a political row over the decision has also brewed in Canberra.
