Design rights still not invited to the ball

Littleprogress has been made on strengthening enforcement and simplifying design law, says Anti Copying in Design’s Dids Macdonald

Dids Macdonald, AntiCopying in Design

The UK design sector is one of the country’s un-sung successstories both nationally and in export markets. Worth £85.2bn to the UK’s grossvalue added and employing around 1.6m in design and design skills (the majorityare lone, micro and SME), little progress has been made on strengthening enforcementand simplifying design law. It seems to have bypassed most decision makers thatthe technical nature of the IP interface/overlap between design protection (alabyrinth of complexity) and copyright protection (a strong and relativelysimple set of laws) renders seismic legal and sector unfairness.