“3/4”]THE ADVISORY COUNCIL MET IN NOVEMBER AND CONTINUES TO SUPPORT ACTIVITY TO DATE

And Trunki came too!

At an ACID Advisory Council meeting hosted by the Design Council, incoming CEO Sarah Weir not only outlined their commitment to collaboration with ACID on IP issues but also outlined their general plans including the Spark initiative which may be of interest to many ACID members. But hurry! Applications close on 21 November.   Design Council Spark is a support and funding programme designed to help you turn your bright idea into a commercially successful product. Since its creation in 2014, Design Council Spark programme has helped more than 100 innovators and entrepreneurs to develop their product ideas, 31 of these have been intensively supported with mentoring, funding and specialist workshops in order to progress to market.

ACID welcomed Gavin Llewellyn an ACID legal affiliate at Stone King solicitors and Duncan MacLay of ThisisNessie as new Advisory Council members to join our existing panel whose input into defining our future is very much valued.

New Head of Membership, Simon Bull outlined his ambitious plans for his first 100 days. He will focus on enhancing processes, retention, member engagement, member services and commercial opportunities. He also outlined the full team and responsibilities at ACID HQ.

In summary, CEO Dids Macdonald reported some staffing shortage issues and membership recruitment challenges and suggested Brexit uncertainty may have had an impact on this. Current trends, however, are on the up! She did a roller coaster journey through ACID’s ongoing campaigning priorities including Brexit and the potential loss of EU unregistered designs protection. Work continues to pursue criminal provisions for unregistered design rights infringement.

ACID Chief Counsel, Nick Kounoupias updated us including feedback from the meeting with Tim Moss, EU Withdrawal Bill and a possible suggestion that ACID should draft its own IP Bill to achieve all the actions required including creating a criminal offence for the infringement of unregistered design. NK said the point that private prosecutions should not be disregarded as an effective sanction against copyright infringement

Frederick Mostert gave an illuminating report on online counterfeiting and how international brands were having their online platforms (including WeChat in China, Instagram and Facebook hijacked by counterfeit sellers for very short time periods to divert traffic/sales to their goods.  YuPoo is another fake site. Further work was acknowledged and needed on online infringement and discussions and actions are in place to address this issue. ACID has responded to the IPO Call for views on the Industrial Strategy and online infringement issues are included.

The ACID Council will meet again on 6 March 2018. We welcome all input from ACID members who would like to contribute to the debate and discussion on campaigning issues. Please contact us at [email protected]