The Design Consultation covers NINE key areas for potential improvement to the intellectual property (IP) system. Plus, the most important TENTH element; submit a case study experience of your own copycat IP infringement stories. Template for case studies, letters to MPs and social media assets on our Design Consultation campaign page.

If you are submitting your own response, this table provides ACID’s suggestions on how to approach the ten aspects that matter.

Below, ACID explains some of the practical issues:

What is the real story? How will it affect UK designers? Will future IP policy and or legislation improve the current David & Goliath copycat culture?

Some laud this consultation as a “New Dawn for UK Design Law” but for whom? Legal academics, judges, lawyers and big, global businesses, or will the long-awaited design law review ensure relevance and reform for all, including the UK’s 1.97million grass roots designers to simplify protection and strengthen enforcement, when designs are stolen?

The jury is out.

Whilst mainly technical and procedural in its approach, the consultation is also a one-off opportunity for designers to tell their story by responding directly to the consultation or, alternatively, send design theft case studies to support ACID’s submission to the consultation using a template to capture design infringement experiences. Real life fully resonates so that Government understands where design infringement is happening, why it’s happening and the cost of copying on businesses, individuals and the future of UK design, both financial and emotional.

In recent surveys, ACID members believe that approximate 90% of infringements are deliberate and intentional. What do you think?

We wholeheartedly support parity of IP law and harmonisation, in terms and protection for designers, who rely on design rights and those who rely on copyright.

Copyright lasts for a creator’s life plus another 70 years, while the two unregistered design rights max out at 15 years. Intentionally infringing copyright can mean up to 10 years in prison, yet intentionally copying an unregistered design carries no criminal penalty at all. We hold the view that there should be parity across both IP rights on which most designers rely.

For example, the photographer who captures a new 3D product in an instant photographic image will hold stronger rights than the designer who invested years and resources bringing it to market, a clear inequity. Is it fair to structure copyright law around expression and culture and design law around industrial production and competition. Can one weigh up the talent and creativity of, say, a song writer against an iconic furniture designer, both attracting different IP rights.

Our view therefore is that an ‘effective deterrent system with robust capability’ must include criminalising the intentional infringement of an unregistered design in line with the criminal penalties available for registered design infringement together with targeting individual directors who have consented or connived in the criminal behaviour, we are also seeking more robust IP protection generally.

ACID is fortunate to have expert legal support from its legal affiliates Taylors, DMH Stallard, McDaniels Law, Stone King, Boult and Howard Kennedy, who will be providing legal input on the technical and procedural responses, led by Nick Kounoupias, our Chief Legal Counsel.

This is a once in a decade opportunity for designers to shape design law reform. ACID will be using data analysis of case studies to evidence the scale and scope of the issue. Our legal affiliates will use their expertise and experience to contribute to the legal, procedural and technical aspects of the consultation.

Join our Designs Consultation Workshop on 22 October when we will share our step by step guidance–register for our workshop.