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7 October 2020CopyrightSarah Morgan

IP enforcement: UKIPO calls for views

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is reviewing the legal framework for IP enforcement and has called for views on two particular areas: the cost of legal challenges, and the accessibility and effectiveness of the judicial process.

Open between October 5 and November 2, the request seeks responses from IP rights owners who have used or thought about using the framework to protect or defend their IP rights.

Results will feed into the IPO’s review of existing methods of legal recourse for IP infringement, which the office committed to reviewing to ensure they’re effective, consistent, and proportionate in its IP Enforcement 2020 Strategy.

As part of its commitment, the office created a working group to help target the right areas for further research. Three issues arose—cost of legal challenges, accessibility and effectiveness of judicial processes, and online infringement—but the office will only focus on the first two.

“We recognise that online infringement is a challenging issue for businesses. However, we believe that this important issue is currently being addressed through a range of other initiatives,” said the IPO.

Within the call for submissions, there is an additional section focussed on the inclusion of registered designs in the small claims track at the UK’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC).

Currently, registered designs—alongside patents, plant varieties and semiconductor topographies—cannot be heard before the small claims track. Now, the office is seeking views to help assess the feasibility of including registered designs in the IPEC small claims track.

It said: Registered designs were not included when the [small claims track] was established. The reason for this was because it was thought that the cases were more complex ... However, there has been a long-held view by stakeholders that registered designs should now be included in the [small claims track].”

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