WIPO Hague seminar: time running out to book ...

Time's running out ...

If there has ever been a more unappealing and unappetising manner of presenting information concerning forthcoming events than that employed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), this blogger has yet to find it. Nonetheless, many an interesting and attractive event has been garbed in the dull wrapping of formality and WIPO's Seminar on the Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs (for that is its title) takes place on Friday 31 May in Geneva and there are just three short days left for registration.

Details of the programme and registration may be obtained by clicking here.

IP Bill Seminar - 7th June, London

Your chance to learn about the UK IP Bill will come on 7th June, when CIPA and ITMA will bring you an afternoon seminar on it.
The Bill proposes significant changes to UK design law including criminal sanctions, and also to patent law.  The seminar will address both. 
We will bring you details of time, place, content and price shortly - watch this space.  Places will be limited, so book early. 

The UK Intellectual Property Bill 2013 is here!

Well, following the announcement in the Queen's Speech, the text of the IP Bill is now available on a progress page here, in html and pdf formats.  Our comments on the preceding consultation are available here. 

The next stage is the second reading in the House of Lords - the general debate on all aspects of the Bill - on 22 May.

An innovation is the introduction of a duty on Government to make regular reports on whether, and to what extent, IP has helped foster economic growth.  That may require some very creative accounting.  We wonder why shouldn't the same apply to all legislation, not just IP?

The Bill covers patents and designs in equal measure, and adds a dash of copyright.  The patent side implements the Unitary Patent, together with some minor bits and pieces. On the design side, it does what was promised, in:

• Providing a criminal offence;
• Allowing future Hague accession;
• Making ownership consistent with Community Designs by removing "commissioning";
• Introducing an Opinion Service like that for patents;
• Introducing a prior use defence;
• Broadening UK Unregistered Design Right qualification criteria.

Primary IP legislation is a very rare beast in the UK these days, so this is quite a big deal.  If any readers have UK IP issues that need tidying, this is the moment to get lobbying.

UK Copyright extension - transitional provisions

We recently noted that the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 had been passed, and have now reviewed some of the Parliamentary debates.  The Minister, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie), made some relevant comments on the timing of the repeal of Section 52 of the Copyright Designs & Patents Act (and consequent copyright term extension) on 11 Mar 2013 at Hansard Column 19:

We want affected groups to have adequate time to adapt but we also take seriously the fact that rights owners are pressing us for early implementation. That is why the Government have committed, as I said in Grand Committee, to consult all interested parties on the timing of the change. To decide those timings now would prejudge the consultation, and any transitional period will allow appropriate time to implement changes to copyright exceptions.
...
I can confirm that any copy made, distributed or imported into the UK or communicated to the public while Section 52 is in effect will be unaffected by the change in the law. However, if, for example, a book containing photographs of artistic works is reprinted after Section 52 is repealed, permission will need to be sought from the relevant rights owners unless a copyright exception applies.   So, it seems that implementation will not come immediately, but when it comes it will bite on copies made after implementation.  Concerns were raised, by Professor Lionel Bently amongst others, that extension of s52 could impact books carrying images of three-dimensional works.  The Jules Rimet decision, which would deal with this, has been doubted, so it is perhaps just as well that the Government appears to have got the point, and promised to look at this in the forthcoming proposed legislation to implement copyright exceptions which they announced in December 2012 (announcement here, policy document here). It therefore seems likely that nothing is going to happen immediately.  Watch this space for news.

World IP Day (sort of), as recorded by the design community

This blogger was pretty much off-colour last Friday with the result that all of his good World Intellectual Property Day resolutions came to nought, including keeping up with topical blogposts.  Inevitably he received many interesting items of email on that day, not least of which was the following media release from ACID, kindly penned by Jane Banyai. Now back in better health, this blogger has decided to post it in full, partly because it's a shame to waste it and partly for today's red-hot news -- which you can find in the bold red bit in the middle:

IT’S WORLD IP DAY TODAY 26 April 2013!

The Next Generation – Creators: What is the future?

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)  holds an annual global initiative to celebrate intellectual property. This year the theme is “The Next Generation – Creators: What is the future”.

On 24 April IPAN celebrated its World IP Day with a high profile event at the House of Commons hosted by Pete Wishart, MP, Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group and the theme was, “How clear IP rights for innovation and brands help export-led growth.” An impressive line-up of speakers included the IPO’s CEO John Alty, who ably stood in for the Minister for Intellectual Property who had to cancel at short notice. John outlined the IPO’s corporate strategy for 2013/14. He was joined by FT Columnist, former Chairman of Channel 4 and now Chairman of Capital Risk Partners, Luke Johnson, whose article in yesterday’s Daily Mail slated Google as a gigantic parasite. They were joined by the much applauded new designer on the block, award winning Lee Broom (ACID member) and his partner Charles Rudgard who gave an impressive speech to key influencers on the IP infringement challenges facing original designers and SME’s and the difficulties in cost, time and energy in fighting battles. They also touched on the scale of the perpetrators who appeared to produce the “remarkably similar copies” of their original designs.

Design and IP is a classic example where establishing clear policy has been neglected for 2 decades, according to Professor Ian Hargreaves. So, it could not be a more propitious time for Government and policy makers to take stock of the value that design brings to the UK, not least its £33.5 billion contribution. Let’s hope that after 18 years of ACID campaigning, Government will, in its announcement due next week, confirm the introduction of "criminal sanctions for persistent design infringement to have parity with copyright  [para.87 of today's government response paper says: "The Government intends to introduce a criminal offence which identifies the copying (rather than infringement) of a registered design in the course of business, knowing or having reason to believe that it is registered. The offence will have certain defences attached to it, for example, to reflect reasonable belief on the part of the potential infringer that the design in question was invalid].  The fact that the UK is actually rather good at design resonates in that it is one of the few growth sectors. Ranked highly in the world, the incredible UK design army of 350,000, need to be recognised, not only in the traditional areas of design, but as leaders in socially responsible and environmentally sustainable innovation. 

So what actually is the future for this next generation of growth creators, how high profile is IP in this country and does the UK Government ‘get it’ and take it seriously enough?  Laudably, the USA has long put IP high on its list of national priorities.

The UK’s unique selling point is that we are the only country in the world to have an IP Minister [It might be a selling point, but who's buying? Other countries seem to manage better without one, and the US has a far better concept with its IP Enforcement Coordinator] and so ACID’s message to Viscount Younger is, “Pick up the mantle as IP champion for the UK, where others have failed, and communicate IP’s positive message across all Government departments about the value it brings to the UK economy, society and culture. Ensure, also, that this becomes a consistent global message about the UK’s importance as leading exporters of IP”

Dids Macdonald, ACID’s CEO said, “That wouldn’t be a bad start to support the next generation of creators”

UK Government proposals on Design Law Reform published

Exciting news just in.
 
Today the UK Government published its formal response to the Consultation on the Reform of the UK Designs Legal Framework. The response broadly falls into three categories: modernising, enforcement and process.  It contains policy decisions which will be taken forward by the IPO at the earliest opportunity.
The full response can be found at http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves/hargreaves-designs.htm.  We will review it and bring you our comments as soon as we can.

Five days till logo design competition closes

Not ours ...

Last week we reported that, since the Class 99 weblog will be migrating to MARQUES, where it will be hosted as a sister blog to the Class 46 European trade mark law weblog, it was high time that Class 99 had its own logo.

Class 99 is accordingly running a little competition for anyone who'd like to have a go at designing a Class 99 design blog logo. As last week's post states:

Not ours either

There aren't any prizes, I'm afraid, other than the kudos of being the winner and the international fame and celebrity which will inevitably follow from that.  The closing date for entries is midnight on Friday 3 May, and they should be emailed to me here, with the subject line "Class 99 design".  Assuming that we get enough interesting entries, we'll publish them online (licence to publish, please!) and then run a non-binding readers' poll to see which is or are the most popular. Oh, and we'll be asking you to assign your intellectual property rights to MARQUES, so that the organisation can use the winning entry online, on printed materials, T-shirts, key-fobs, you name it ...!

The flow of entries has suddenly dried up -- and there's still a working week to go.  Come on, have a go!