My Lords, first, as a Scot, I recognise with a little pride the Scottish historical links with intellectual property which have been highlighted today.
Amendment 28C would create a new statutory role of “Director General of Intellectual Property Rights”, with a duty to promote intellectual property rights. As Minister for Intellectual Property, I have a role to champion the IP system as a whole—a point to which I shall revert later. This system recognises the different interests of rights holders, consumers and other users—an important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and supported by my noble friend Lord Lucas.
A balanced intellectual property system promotes strong and competitive markets; encourages innovation and creativity; and is a foundation of the knowledge-based economy. I ask noble Lords how the proposed director-general would fit into that system. The frameworks for patents, copyright, trademarks and designs serve sets of different needs, and function in different ways. It is not clear how introducing a new duty, cutting through those distinct, complex and largely effective systems, would affect their operation.
We recognise the importance of promoting and educating about intellectual property. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin highlighted with some impressive statistics, and has highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, intellectual property is an important agenda for businesses and consumers alike, but although the Government understand the intention behind Amendment 28C, there is a need to deliver a balanced approach.
Amendment 28D would create a new obligation on the Government to report annually on the state of copyright licensing in the UK, and between the UK and our trading partners. The Government are keen to ensure that the intellectual property system as a whole works well. We have ourselves proposed that the Secretary of State will present an annual report to Parliament setting out his view on how the activities of the Intellectual Property Office are facilitating innovation and growth.
The Government agree with Professor Hargreaves that intellectual property policy should be based on reliable evidence. However, the reporting obligation created by this new clause would not be a proportionate tool to do that. Moreover, copyright licences are private agreements, and the Government do not intervene or monitor individual transactions unless circumstances are exceptional.
Collating large amounts of commercially sensitive data could also cause concern within the markets, and could have an impact on the competitiveness of UK interests. Headline figures showing the health of the creative industries are already available. It is not clear that the proposed report would add value to that existing data.
The UK’s creative industries are among the most influential and successful in the world. Our creativity is, quite rightly, highly marketable, award-winning and sought after, and creative industries contributed 2.9% of UK gross value added in 2009.
At this point, I should like to address some points raised by my noble friend Lord Jenkin and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, concerning the value of the IPO. The Government recognise the value of the creative industries, and it is worth emphasising some progress. The Government have done a lot for UK creators and are doing more. We have supported term extension for music performers; introduced charging of charities for music use; are pressing ahead with the antipiracy measures of the Digital Economy Act; and rejected the notion of introducing US-style fair use in the UK.
The Government are also supporting the creative industries abroad through our growing IP attaché network. Those attachés provide practical support to UK businesses, build relations with intellectual property agencies in host countries and improve UK influence overseas. The UK has attachés in south-east Asia, China, India and Brazil. The changes proposed in the Bill will bring the copyright framework up to date and reduce administrative burdens on both creators and users of content. My noble friend Lord Jenkin also questioned the direction and strategy of the IPO, supported by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, who questioned whether the IPO is indeed a champion of IP.
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It is worth pointing out that on 17 December 2012, the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, set out his vision for developing the UK’s intellectual property landscape to encourage growth and a renewed programme of action for the IPO. The plans involve a step change in the way the IPO delivers services and include launching a super fast patent processing service to deliver patents in just 90 days and a faster trade marks examination service which will deliver a full examination report in five days instead of 10. There is a campaign to educate smaller businesses on getting the best value from their creativity, and innovation and action to help consumers and young people understand the importance of respecting IP and the harm that counterfeiting or illegal downloading can do. The Intellectual Property Office is working with key partners such as the City of London Police to tackle IP crime such as counterfeiting and online piracy.
My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones raised the impact assessments for copyright provisions in the Bill. The Government’s copyright exception proposals are accompanied by impact assessments which show that changes could contribute more than £500 million to the UK economy over 10 years on a conservative view, with likely additional benefits of around £290 million each year. The Government’s copyright proposals are accompanied by impact assessments that have been scrutinised by the independent regulatory policy committee. The Government have also consulted extensively on these proposals through the Hargreaves review, a formal consultation and numerous discussions with stakeholders and industry representatives. We have considered all responses very carefully. The Government will bring forward secondary legislation to introduce these changes in 2013. Prior to this we will publish the draft regulations for technical review. The Government will make every effort to ensure that all interested parties have the opportunity to comment on the draft legislation before it is laid.
On Amendment 28C, my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones referred to a proposal for a tsar to enforce intellectual property, much as there is in the USA. I reconfirm that I am the Minister for Intellectual Property. I believe that no other country has such a post. This Government have carried out a range of activity to support the enforcement of IP. The UK’s legal system convicts pirates and counterfeiters: 80% of criminal cases under IP legislation in 2009 led to a guilty verdict. In 2009, the UK convicted nearly eight times as many copyright offenders as in 2002. The assets seized from IP criminals amounted to £21 million in 2010-11, which was more than twice the previous year’s figure. Figures vary from year to year but there has been an increasing trend in the value of assets recovered since 2004-05. Therefore, the IPO has made a substantial investment in creating an IP crime intelligence capability. The IPO also provides direct support for enforcement activities through its intelligence hub. The hub holds in excess of 50,000 reports and this year alone has processed some 3,000 data searches against the database for the enforcement community.
The noble Lord, Lord Smith, mentioned the Hooper report recommendations. I am pleased that he supports the report. Hargreaves recommended that the copyright
hub be set up. As Hooper found, it is now for the industry to work together to set this up. The Government will, of course, help where appropriate.
In conclusion, I assure noble Lords that the Government understand the importance of the UK creative industries and of promoting a balanced intellectual property system, which, indeed, my noble friend Lord Jenkin has acknowledged. The Government have considered these issues carefully. On the basis of what I have said, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.