The IP Federation has issued a policy paper in response to the qualification criteria for the unregistered design right (UDR) proposed in Clause 3 of the Intellectual Property Bill 2013–14.

The amendments as currently proposed in Clause 3 of the bill would extend UK UDR, for the first time, to companies such as Chinese (non-HK), Japanese, Korean, and US companies. The changes currently proposed in the bill would amount to a strategic disadvantaging of UK-registered companies manufacturing in the UK.

Companies manufacturing in the UK for export to most other countries could easily find themselves in the position where sale in the export territory was not an infringement of any right of their Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or US competitors, but the manufacture in the UK is. The obvious way of avoiding the problem would be to offshore manufacture to another country.

For full details, click HERE.

To see all our policy papers, click HERE.