A more affordable route to deal with copyright disputes and new powers for the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to check whether a design is genuinely new before it is registered are among new reforms aimed at protecting the UK’s 80,000 design businesses.
In its response to a consultation on the UK designs framework, the government said the changes will make the system simpler to navigate, more resistant to misuse and more accessible, particularly for smaller firms and lone designers, when disputes arise.
The UK’s design sector contributed around £137 billion to the economy in 2023 and supports more than two million jobs. Of the 80,000 companies, 92% are micro businesses.
Under the changes, the IPO will have new powers to consider whether a design is genuinely new by checking if it has “individual character”. This means that it creates a clearly different overall impression from anything already made public.
The move is aimed at tackling incidents when the design registration system is exploited to gain an unfair advantage over competitors. Actions people take including registering designs created by someone else, copying a competitor’s product images or marketing materials and filing designs for generic or well-known products they had no role in creating.
The registrations are then used to block competitors by sending takedown notices to online marketplaces, leading to affected small businesses facing legal disputes. Impacted firms reported spending between £10,000 and more than £50,000 to resolve the cases.
To help small businesses deal with legal costs, registered design cases will be heard in the small claims court system for the first time. This is a simpler, lower-cost route compared to the Patents Court or Intellectual Property Enterprise Court processes which cases must go through currently.
Another change is updating the law to make clear that a design which includes animation, movement or transitions can qualify for registered design protection. The government said this better reflects how digital design work is created and presented.
In addition, the processes for design registration will be simplified, as will the rules for unregistered design protection, including changing the law so that supplementary unregistered design protection can apply when a design is disclosed anywhere in the world.
Intellectual property minister Chris McDonald said:
“Britain’s designers are some of the best in the business, but small firms and independent designers too often struggle to reap their hard-earned rewards because of an outdated system.
“Our reforms will make protecting their hard work simpler, so designers spend less time bogged down in admin and more time unleashing the creativity that drives them, and ultimately benefits us all through innovative products and services.”
Adam Williams, CEO of the Intellectual Property Office, added:
“Stronger, simpler and clearer design protection will help prevent the system being misused, remove unnecessary complexity and give designers a clearer and more accessible route to enforce their rights.
“For small businesses and lone designers in particular, clearer rules and fewer barriers can make a real difference. By creating a system that works better from application through to enforcement and better reflects modern design practice, we will help give creators of all sizes greater confidence to invest in their ideas and turn them into successful products and enterprises.”
