UK businesses demand protection for intellectual property in trade talks. Risks to UK if IP is not prioritised. Need a good deal with EU27
London, 19th December 2017: In light of the announcement that the Brexit talks can now move on to the next stage, including the future trading relationship between the UK and the EU27, the Alliance for Intellectual Property has today published a report highlighting the current and future export opportunities for British businesses. Alliance members represent businesses that rely on copyright, trademarks, branding and design rights for their success. In just a few examples highlighted in the report, the publishing industry’s exports were worth £3.1 billion in 2016, the music industry £2.5bn and the TV industry £1.3bn, all of which have experienced growth in recent years.
The Alliance believes these exports could grow even faster if the Government uses its future trade negotiations with the EU and other countries to raise the level of IP protection in these countries. If the UK fails to do so, however, the value realised from British creativity will be lost.
The UK’s priority in trade negotiations is clearly to forge a new trading relationships with the EU. On copyright and trademarks the transposition of current EU legislation into UK law is the priority, though there is some work to be done to ensure design rights are equivalent and to ensure any new customs arrangements take the transportation of counterfeit goods into account.
It is, however, future trading arrangements with non-EU countries where using the negotiations to improve IP protection could have the greatest benefit. Clearly there remain significant issues with IP theft in countries such as China, India and Brazil where the Government has highlighted the potential for trade deals. However, even in countries such as the US, Canada and Australia there are issues around IP protection which the Alliance would like the Government to raise.
As an example, Canada does not provide customs officials with the ability to detain pirated and counterfeit goods that are moving in transit or are transhipped through Canada and has broader copyright exceptions than the UK, whilst under US copyright law there is no right for the producers of sound recordings to receive a royalty when their recordings are included in terrestrial broadcasts (e.g. through FM radio).
The report highlights a series of measures that the Alliance would like to see raised by the UK Government in its discussions with a range of countries. Commenting on the Report, Eddy Leviten, Director General of the Alliance said:
“If we are to maximise the commercialisation of our world leading creativity, we need IP protection put at the heart of our trade negotiations. A lot has been talked about agriculture and financial services, but IP protection is vital to all businesses, but particularly those that rely on creativity. Today’s report puts a figure on our members exports which we believe will accelerate if the Government takes this issue seriously.”
Dids Macdonald, ACID’s CEO and Vice Chair of the Alliance said, “Recent statistics revealed by the Design Council state that between 2008-2013 there was growth of exports within the design sector of 34%. We now need more focused stats on just how important this sector is to our design exports from the UK. For example, Design and Design Skills are worth more than £209 billion to the UK’s GVA, according to the Design Council”.
Report available at: https://www.allianceforip.co.uk/alliance-trade-report
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