CIPA
CIPA HAS REAL CONCERNS ABOUT THE LONG-TERM ADVERSE EFFECTS THE PROPOSED NEW SYSTEM IS LIKELY TO HAVE ON THE COMPETITIVENESS OF UK BUSINESSES.
the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills has been busy launching initiatives and trying to make businesses more aware of the benefits of having a robust IP system. On December 17, speaking at Te Big Innovation Centre in London, Cable launched a range of measures designed to “improve services to business, strengthen enforcement, and help consumers get the most out of creative products and services”.
David Cameron, were well-briefed. CIPA started the year with a trip to Westminster, to give evidence to the UK parliament’s European Scrutiny Committee. When the negotiations moved to the Joint European Council in Brussels in June, CIPA was still there in the background, as the UK negotiating team double-checked CIPA’s position by telephone before going into the all-night session that led to the breakthrough political agreement.
CIPA supported the UK government’s position that resulted in the deletion of Articles 6 to 8, reducing (though not removing) the unnecessary influence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and the political agreement that an important section of the Central Court should come to London.
However, along with other organisations
representing British industry and the legal profession, CIPA has real concerns about the long- term adverse effects the proposed new system is likely to have on the competitiveness of UK businesses. Te institute continues to offer advice to the government and has called for a proper, evidence-based economic impact assessment of the effect on the UK economy, to be carried
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out and made widely available before the UK parliament is asked to ratify the UPC agreement.
Industry, the IP professions and some governments in other European states have similar concerns. Poland has gone so far as to commission and publish an economic impact study. As a result, the Polish government has signalled that it will not sign the UPC agreement, at least at the outset, as the study carried out by Deloitte’s revealed that the agreement in its present form would cost Poland 53 billion PLN (£11 billion) over 20 years.
It is encouraging for CIPA to have the government seeking and acting on its advice. CIPA represents all registered patent attorneys in the UK, currently numbering more than 2,000. Its members are involved in filing and maintaining the vast majority of patents registered by all types of British companies. Te institute can justifiably claim to have a unique insight into how the patent system works in practice and how it affects businesses. CIPA will continue to make this knowledge and its views known to government during 2013 and beyond.
It is not only the proposed UP that has been keeping IP in the spotlight during 2012. Under the leadership of secretary of state Vince Cable,
World Intellectual Property Review e-Digest 2013
CIPA supports all of these aims and is working closely with the IP Office on initiatives aimed at encouraging businesses—especially small, innovative companies—to maximise the value of their IP assets. Te joint programme includes:
• Running regular (weekly) free IP clinics for start-up businesses;
• Training business advisers about IP at a series of masterclasses;
• Running a training programme—jointly with the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA)—aimed at developing patent and trademark attorneys’ skills in offering broader and more strategic advice to small businesses;
• Producing a series of information leaflets and web-based material that business advisers (including accountants and banks) can use to help their clients get better value from their IP assets; and
• Taking part in events, such as the British Library’s ‘London Business Village’, that bring together a range of business support services that small and early stage enterprises can benefit from.
Media feeding frenzy
If politicians took an unusually high interest in IP during 2012, the British media’s coverage was
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