ACID condemns the Government’s failure to create a criminal offence for the intentional infringement of unregistered designs, leaving the majority of Britain’s designers without meaningful protection. This is manifestly unfair and makes a mockery of the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) claims over many years that the design sector’s importance would be reflected in sufficient deterrents to prevent copying.

Read the full announcement here.

Following years of campaigning accompanied by robust evidence, the UKIPO stated at a stakeholder meeting today that the evidence was not robust enough and too anecdotal. ACID will be demanding to know what robust evidence was provided by those who opposed their view for fair justice for designers whose work is stolen. The Government was also unable to explain what robust evidence would have persuaded it. Meanwhile, a David & Goliath culture that is rampantly out of control continues.

Thirty years ago, in 1996, John Lewis copied a new product range created by Dids Macdonald OBE., now Chair and Co-founder of ACID. Every design in the range was registered. 

It was deliberate infringement. A sanitised word for theft.

Taking legal action consumed two years of her life, cost a fortune, nearly destroyed her business, and ended in a settlement without admission of liability.

John Lewis walked away virtually unscathed.

A familiar refrain was added: “Without admitting liability, John Lewis and Holbein have agreed a settlement…”

And this is not an isolated story. Thousands of British designers have faced, and continue to face, IP theft on an industrial scale. Thirty years on, little has fundamentally changed.

FOR THIRTY YEARS. 11,000 DAYS. 52,200 WORKING HOURS. (based on a 7.5 working day)

Successive governments, policymakers, lawyers, judges, and corporate decisionmakers have all been paid for their time.

But when a designer’s livelihood is stolen, it is the creator who is left to absorb the loss. The copier keeps their financial gains, mostly.

Consider the injustice. Had a designer stolen a director’s wallet or watch, they could have faced criminal prosecution. Yet those who deliberately take, manufacture and profit from a designer’s registered work can leave the victim facing years of expensive civil litigation, while retaining the commercial benefits.

Since successful campaigning for the introduction of criminal provisions for the intentional infringement of a registered design enshrined in the 2014 IP Act, ACID has campaigned for meaningful protection and a deterrent with real teeth. That campaign achieved an important milestone.

However, the Government has now decided not to extend those provisions to unregistered designs.

For Britain’s design community, this is a massive kick in the teeth.

Why? Because the majority of Britain’s 2.25 million designers rely on unregistered designs to protect their original work. By excluding these designs from the new criminal provisions, the Government has created a two-tier system of protection, leaving a sizeable proportion of the design sector without the same deterrent against deliberate copying.

Dids Macdonald OBE, ACID’s Chair and Co-founder, said:

“Britain’s designers have been failed by Government. After campaigning, we finally secured criminal provisions for the intentional infringement of registered designs, yet the Government has stopped short of extending that protection to unregistered designs.

Given that the majority of Britain’s designers rely on unregistered design rights, this is a travesty. The Design Economy is worth £137.6b to the UK’s GVA. What message does this send to the thousands of designers whose businesses, livelihoods and creative investment depend on their original work?

We have questionable laws against suspiciously handling salmon and shaking carpets in London streets. But where is the meaningful deterrent when someone’s IP is deliberately stolen for commercial gain?

What is the point of having laws that cannot, in the main, be pursued?

Why should a designer have to spend years and a fortune pursuing a civil case, while those who copy, manufacture and profit from their work can walk away with the commercial rewards?

A question that must now be asked is should the UK’s IP policy remain with the UKIPO, a government agency and a trading company, whose main clients are lawyers?

I am asking Government one simple question: when will you stop protecting the economics of copying and start protecting the people who create?

British creativity deserves better. And frankly, so should the British Government.”

Nick Kounoupias, ACID’s Chief Counsel said:

“The IPO acknowledges in its report that the rampant copying of designs causes considerable stress to designers as well as depriving them of their livelihood and forcing them into very expensive litigation. Given this recognition by government, it is frankly astonishing that no meaningful reforms have been suggested to ameliorate matters. 

ACID will continue to campaign for effective, proportionate, and accessible IP protection for all designers, whether their designs are registered or unregistered.

But enough with the diplomatic language. It’s time to say it as it is.

There is a massive disparity in IP rights protection in the UK. Why should an author, a songwriter or an artist, each of whom relies on copyright laws, receive protection for their entire life plus 70 years whilst a bespoke furniture or lighting designer for example should receive a maximum of 15 years protection under the unregistered rights regime? Indeed there is a possibility that the 15 years could be reduced even further in the Government’s attempts to simplify the design laws regime. 

And what about the differing treatment of theft of a song or a photograph, let’s say, and the theft of a design?  A photographer who takes a photograph of a design is afforded copyright protection in that photograph for his entire life plus 70 years for two seconds work. That photographer can also look to the criminal courts to protect their photograph if it is deliberately copied. Yet the designer who created the design in the first place over many hours is not protected at all by the criminal courts when that design is stolen. 

The creative industries are a vital part of Britain’s economic and cultural identity. Designers deserve more than simply recognition for their contribution; they deserve laws that provide a meaningful deterrent against deliberate IP theft. And the Government has wasted a golden opportunity to do so.

It is a nonsense and insulting for UKIPO to claim that it has UK designers’ interests at heart. It seems to be more motivated by the wish to keep non-UK multinationals happy not UK designers. Is that what our Government should be doing?”

I hope that the officials at the UKIPO who have made this decision are proud of having now driven thousands of lone, micro and small design led businesses to the wall. They should hang their heads in shame.”