The Furniture Industry and IP

High Wycombe

Map Wikipedia

This is the first of a series of articles about the communities and industries of South East England and how IP relates to them.  This post focuses on High Wycombe and its neighbourhood which is best known for furniture making.   According to the Wycombe District Council website, furniture has been manufactured in the district since the 17th century. Despite competition from other parts of the UK and abroad furniture making in Wycombe is still going strong.

Legal Protection
The reason for the industry's success is its reputation for quality and design.  That reputation results from considerable investment in technology, product design and marketing for which the industry requires robust legal protection.  Investment in new technology is protected by patents which may be granted by the Intellectual Property Office ("IPO") in Newport or the European Patent Office ("EPO") in Munich. New designs may be protected by registration with the IPO as registered designs or the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market ("OHIM") in Alicante as registered Community designs ("RCD"). Brands are protected by the registration of distinctive signs as "registered trade marks" with the IPO or as "Community trade marks" ("CTM") with OHIM.  Copyright is also important to the furniture industry as the artwork for fabrics and other surface decoration are artistic works and some items of furniture may be works of artistic craftsmanship.

Patents
A patent is the monopoly of a new invention. It confers the exclusive right to make, sell, import or use the invention.  An invention may be a product or a process.  Patents may be granted for the United Kingdom by the IPO or the EPO. It is not yet possible to get a patent for the whole European Union but it is already possible to apply to the EPO for patents (known as "European patents") for the same invention in up to 38 European countries and it should soon be possible to apply to the EPO for a European patent for (which will be known as a "unitary patent") for the territories of most of the countries of the EU including the UK.

Designs
There are at least 6 ways of protecting designs in the United Kingdom:

• new designs having individual character may be registered with the IPO for the UK alone as registered designs under the Registered Designs Act 1949;
• new designs having individual character can be registered with OHIM for the whole EU as RCD under the Community design regulation;
• designs that could have been registered with the IPO as registered designs or registered with OHIM as RCD are protected from copying throughout the EU as unregistered Community designs ("UCD") by virtue of the Community design regulation;
• original designs of aspects of shape or configuration of 3-dimensional articles are protected within the UK from copying by unregistered design right pursuant to Part III of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 ("CDPA");
• the artwork for fabrics, floor and wall coverings and other surface decoration is protected from copying in the UK by copyright pursuant to Part I of the CDPA; and
• works of artistic craftsmanship within the meaning of s.4 (1) (c) of the CDPA which might include some items of furniture are protected in the UK as original artistic works by Part 1 of that Act.

Registration of a design as a registered design or RCD confers the exclusive right to use the design and "use" for this purpose means "making, offering, putting on the market, importing, exporting or using of a product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied, or stocking such a product for those purposes." Designs may be registered as registered designs or RCDs for an initial term of 5 years which can be renewed for further 5 year terms up to a maximum of 25 years. Registration of a design with the IPO confers that monopoly for the UK alone. Registration with OHIM confers that monopoly throughout the EU including the UK. UCD subsists in a new design for 3 years from the date upon which the design was first made available to the public in the EU. Unregistered design right subsists for a total of 15 years unless articles made to the design are offered for sale or hire within the first 5 years of that term in which case design right subsists for 10 years from the end of the year in which such articles were first made available to the public. In the last 5 years of the term anyone in the world can apply to the design right owner for a licence to make articles to the design as of right. If the terms of such licence cannot be agreed they are determined by a hearing officer appointed by the the CEO or Comptroller of the IPO.

Copyright
Artistic copyright subsists for the life of the person who created the design plus 70 years. However, s.52 of the CDPA limits the term of the copyright of any artistic work that was or could have been registered as a registered design or RCD to 25 years. S.52 has been repealed by s.74 (2) of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 following the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C168/09 Flos SpA v Semeraro Casa e Famiglia SpA [2011] ECDR 8, [2011] RPC 10, [2011] EUECJ C-168/09. The repeal has not yet taken effect and the government is consulting on when the repeal should take effect (see Jane Lambert "Flos putting us all through the Mill" 17 Oct 2014).

Trade Marks
A trade mark is a sign that can be represented graphically which is capable of distinguishing goods or services of one undertaking from those of others. Examples include words (including personal names), designs, letters, numerals or the shape of goods or their packaging. Signs are registered in relation to specified goods or services. Registration of a sign with the IPO as a registered trade mark confers the exclusive right to use that mark in the UK relation to the goods or services for which the mark is registered. Registration with OHIM confers the exclusive right to use that mark in relation to such goods or services throughout the EU. "Use" includes labelling, advertising and point of sale marketing.

Enforcement
The rights mentioned above may be enforced by civil proceedings of the courts of the country where an infringement is threatened or takes place.  Remedies include injunctions (orders of the court to do or refrain from doing specified acts punishable by fine or imprisonment if disobeyed), damages (compensation for loss or damage resulting from the infringement) or an account of profits (surrender of benefits of infringement) and costs. In England and Wales claims up to £500,000 may be brought in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC") where trials are limited to 2 days and recoverable costs capped at £50,000. IPEC has a small claims track for trade mark and copyright claims up to £10,000 where recoverable costs are limited to a few hundred pounds. All other claims should be brought in the Chancery Division of the High Court. Patent and registered and RCD claims over are reserved to a special tribunal of the Chancery Division known as the Patents Court. Claims relating to the new unitary patent and eventually all European patents will be determined by a new Unified Patent Court consisting of a Court of First Instance and a Court of Appeal. The Court of First Instance will be based in Paris with a section in London and other chambers throughout the EU.

Criminal Proceedings
Piracy (copyright infringement on an industrial scale) and counterfeiting (trade mark infringement on an industrial scale) are offences in the UK and most other industrial countries. Since the 1 Oct 2014 intentional copying of a registered design or RCD has also been an offence in the UK. Prosecutions are brought by local authority trading standards officers or privately. It is not an offence to infringe a patent, unregistered design right or other intellectual property right in the UK.

Further Information
From time to time we hold workshops and publish guidance on issues that affect particular industries. Issues that we have identified as of particular interest to the furniture industry in High Wycombe and the rest of the UK are the unitary patent, the repeal of s.52 and the new offence of intentional copying. If there is sufficient interest we shall hold seminars in the town in conjunction with local patent and trade mark attorneys and solicitors. In the meantime, if anyone wants to discuss those issues or IP law in relation to furniture manufacturing and distribution generally he or she should call me on 020 7404 5252 or message me through my contact form.

Get your free intellectual property rights

Jane Lambert

Everyone knows that patents, trade marks and registered designs have to be registered, that applications for patents and trade marks are examined, that all those registrations can be challenged and that it all costs money. But there are some intellectual property rights ("IPR") that cost nothing and these should be considered when budgeting for the protection of intellectual assets.

Non-registrable Rights
These fall into two groups:

• those created by a succession  of judicial decisions (sometimes called "common law") such as the right to enforce and obligation of confidence or bring an action for passing off; and 
• those created by British or EU legislation such as copyright, design rights, database rights and unregistered Community designs.

Some rights are alternatives to registrable rights such as the obligation of confidence and patents.  Others supplement registrable rights such as the law of passing off and trade marks. I will consider each class of intellectual asset - that is to say, brands, design, technology and creative works - in turn,

Brands

Trade marks, business names, the get up of products, the layout and livery if business premises or other distinguishable signs can be protected by the law of passing off. The right to bring an action for passing off arises in the following circumstances:

• consumers of a product or service associate a supplier or its products or services with a particular sign;
• a competitor misleads such consumers by offering goods or services under a similar sign; and
• the supplier loses sales or suffers some other kind of loss and damage.

The action of passing off can sometimes be used to protect signs that cannot be registered as trade marks but there are two drawbacks. The first is that the action can only be brought once consumers have begun to associate a business or its goods and services with a particular sign. That is not always easy for start-ups or other small businesses. The second drawback is that complainants have to gather a lot of evidence about their goodwill or reputation and the alleged misrepresentation before an action can be launched. Thus, a passing off action tends to be more complex and expensive than an action for trade mark infringement.

Design

There are five ways in which designs can be protected in the UK:

• new designs having individual character can be registered under the Registered Designs Act 1949;
• new designs having individual character can be registered as registered Community designs under the Community Design Regulation;
• designs that could be registered as registered designs or registered Community designs are protected from copying throughout the EU for up to 3 years as unregistered Community designs by the Community Design Regulation;
• aspects of shape or configuration of the whole or part of an article can be protected from copying by unregistered design right for between 10 and 15 years under Part III of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988; and
• artwork for textiles, wall coverings and also surface decoration may be protected from copying as copyright works for the life of the author plus 70 years under Part I of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Registration of a design as a registered design confers a monopoly of  a design whereas the other rights confer protection only against copying. The significance of the distinction is that a monopoly may be infringed by making, selling, importing, exporting, using or stocking a product that looks like a registered design even even without copying. The other rights are infringed only where copying has occurred and that is not always easy to prove. 

Technology

Patents are monopolies that are granted for disclosing a new invention to the world. The law of confidence is the very opposite in that it can be used to keep technical information secret. An obligation of confidence arises when A ("the confider") discloses technical or other information that is not generally known the use or disclosure of which could harm the confider or benefit a third party ("confidential information") to B ("the confidante") expressly in confidence or in circumstances giving rise to an on obligation of confidence. The obligation continues for so long as the information remains secret. If is breached by using the information for a purpose other than the one for which it was disclosed or by passing it on to a third party without the confider's consent or other lawful excuse. The obligation subsists for so long as the information remains secret. One legitimate way of learning a business secret is by buying a product, taking it apart to see how it was made and reverse engineering it. There are however some products that cannot easily be reverse engineered such as food and drink. The recipes for chartreuse and Coca Cola have been kept secret for centuries.

Some new technologies such as computing and financial services cannot easily be protected by patents in the UK at any rate. The source code of a computer program is generally kept secret while the code itself (whether in digital impulses or human readable form is protected from unauthorized reproduction by copyright.

The casing and circuity of products with a short shelf life such as mobile phones, toys and consumer electronics can be protected from copying by unregistered design right.

An intellectual property right that can be used t protect compilations of data are database rights - that is to say the right to prevent unauthorized extraction and re-utilization of data held on databases.

Works of Art and Literature

Original artistic, dramatic, literary and musical works, broadcasts, films and sound recordings and published editions of typographical works can be protected from copying and other restricted acts for varying terms by Part I of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Actors, dancers, musicians, singers and other performers can object to the unauthorized broadcasting, filming or taping of their performances by Part II of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Publishers of an unpublished work in which copyright has expired are protected from unauthorized copying and other restricted acts by publication right.

The provisions relating to copyright, database right, publication rights and rights in performances are set out in an informal consolidation published by the Intellectual Property Office.

Intellectual Property Insurance

As with all IPR it is essential to consider how they will be enforced.   In the case of a new business that is best achieved by before-the-event insurance.

Further Information

Should anybody want to discuss this article or any of he topics mentioned or referred to call me on 020 7404 5252 during normal business hours. You can also contact me through my contact form or message me through Facebook, G+, Linkedin, twitter or Xing.

The IP Bill is about to become Law. Learn all about it.

Source Wikipedia

Jane Lambert

The Intellectual Property Bill has completed its passage through the Lords and Commons and awaits royal assent. Once the Clerk of the Parliaments utters the words "La Reyne le veult" the Bill becomes law. The Bill makes important changes to patent and design law and imposes a duty upon the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills to deliver an annual report on how far the Intellectual Property Office and IP legislation generally have contributed to growth and innovation.

I have charted the progress of the Bill since it was introduced into the House of Lords by my fellow St Andrean Lord Younger just under a year ago (see Jane Lambert "The Intellectual Property Bill" 28 May 2013 NIPC Law) and I submitted evidence to the House as it passed through committee (see Intellectual Property Bill, Written evidence submitted by Jane Lambert (IP 04) 31 Jan 2014). Two days ago, I analysed the Bill's provisions in so far as they affect inventors (see Jane Lambert "How the IP Bill affects Inventors" 21 April 2014) and I am about to write a corresponding article on how the Bill is likely to affect designers.

This Bill has had a rougher passage than it need have had largely because of the government's determination to  criminalize registered design infringement notwithstanding advice to the contrary from the vast majority of intellectual property practitioners. Thankfully the original proposals have been watered down significantly so it is unlikely that there will be many prosecutions that could not have been brought under existing legislation but the fight over that provision delayed the reforms to design law that everyone welcomes such as an alternative appeals procedure from the Designs Registry, accession to the Hague, the extension of the IPO opinions service to designs and some important changes to unregistered designs law.

Despite the watering down of the provisions criminalizing design infringement the threat of prosecution is likely to result in more challenges to registered and registered Community designs whether in invalidation proceedings, threats applications and requests for opinions on validity (see my article "Clause 13 of the Intellectual Property Bill will probably go through. What next?" 20 Dec 2013 NIPC Law).

Our chambers will be responding to this with a series of training sessions the first of which will be a talk by my colleague Alex Rozycki and me on the Intellectual Property Bil at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square on 19 May 2014 between 16:00 and 18:00 (see "Learn how the IP Bill will affect you"  17 April 2014 NIPC Law). Alex specializes in the criminal aspects of IP law and will speak on how to defend a Crown and magistrates court proceedings and indeed how to bring a successful private prosecution under the new legislation.  I will be talking about every other aspect of the legislation. CPD points will be available and if you want to attend this talk call George on 020 7404 5252 or fill in our on-line form.

If the event in London is a success we shall repeat our talk in other parts of South East England. If you want to host our talk in your offices or at your local law society then call me on 020 7404 5252 or fill in my contact form. You can also tweet me, write on my wall or send me a message through G+, Linkedin or Xing,