Published on : Friday, January 31, 2014
An opportunity to protect UK designers is at risk of being squandered today when the Intellectual Property Bill is considered in committee by the House of Commons. Aiming to give the same level of protection to industrial product designs as currently enjoyed by copyright and trade marks, the Bill’s clause 13 will for the first time, criminalise those who commission or make knock-off products.
Yet, says Simon Clark of BLP, the clause falls far short of what is needed and will only catch a small proportion of those who steal other people’s inventiveness. Under its present wording, “those who copy a design but incorporate one or two minor changes will still get away with it,” Clark says. “What’s needed is a wider test that catches copycat designs which create the same overall impression as the original even though there may be minor differences.”
The current victims of this legal loophole, he says, are innovative British designers in small companies who cannot afford expensive intellectual property protection on a global basis. “Introducing an effective criminal offence will be a deterrent to those who want to rip them off,” Clark says. In a world where England prides itself on the quality of its business law it would be a tragedy if our key intellectual property legislation proved to be “not fit for purpose”.
Tags: Bill’s clause 13, British designers, House of Commons, Intellectual Property Bill, intellectual property legislation, Simon Clark of BLP, UK designers
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