My Lords, again, this is a probing amendment that emanates from points made in the response provided by the Government to the extensive consultation carried out before the Bill was prepared. Section 53 of the CDPA currently states that acts carried out with the permission of the owner of a UK registered design do not infringe any artistic copyright that might also exist in the article in question. The Government are extending this to community designs but not to unregistered designs. The question therefore is: why is this happening? Can the noble Viscount explain why this decision has been taken and what its implications are?
It is worth recording that the proposal to apply the approach that I have just outlined to the unregistered design right was opposed by a number of respondents. The CIPA stated:
“Firstly, UDR and UK copyright are more or less mutually exclusive at present, so there is no real need for the provision. Secondly, we think it should refer only to registered designs and not unregistered designs, since the presumption arises from the public register which acts as prima facie proof of title”.
The ITMA stated that,
“a registered design is a monopoly right and unless successfully challenged on the basis of an earlier right such as copyright, remains a monopoly. This does not apply to unregistered designs so extension appears inappropriate”.
For completeness, the Government’s response states:
“Given the inherent distinction between UK unregistered right and UK copyright, it is not appropriate to extend the defence to cover UK unregistered right. The alternative of including the EU unregistered right within the defence would seem to add another point of difference, and therefore complexity, in dealing with UK and EU rights. Taking these points into consideration and, as another response mentioned, that the current defence arises through the public register which acts as prima facie proof of title, the Government does not intend to extend the defence to cover any unregistered rights”.
This is a not uncomplicated area and I therefore appeal to the Minister to provide the necessary clarity and lightness that will allow us to follow it through.
However, I should point out that the City of London Law Society, perhaps stimulated by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who may wish to speak on this
point, referred to the possibility of split ownership in relation to this issue. Indeed, the IP judges who we quoted earlier said that:
“The Consultation asks if there is any reason why section 53 should be extended to unregistered design right, but does not ask if there is any reason why not. Why should the logic be different, at least if UK unregistered design right continues to be substantively different to Community unregistered design right?”,
which of course it would under the Bill.
It seems that there is something in this. It can be unclear whether a design falls to be protected by copyright or unregistered design right. The boundary turns in part on whether the design is for an “artistic work” or for something other than an artistic work, which is rather a narrow point of difference. Identifying whether something is an artistic work such as a sculpture, which, as we now know, does not include a stormtrooper helmet from the “Star Wars” films but which might, I am told, include toy soldiers, engravings—including car floor mats—and works of artistic craftsmanship is a concept over which there is much confusion. This illustrates the points behind the difficulty here.
Section 236 of the CDPA states it is no infringement of UDR to do an act which infringes copyright. If ownership is in the same hands and a person has permission to use the unregistered design right but it turns out that the design is an artistic work, they infringe—although a court might fashion an implied licence with respect to copyright. If the ownership is in different hands, the same problem might arise and there would be no possibility of such a licence. The matter varies, too, with whether Community unregistered design rights are involved. Here there is a closer overlap, as there is no equivalent of Section 236 since a person can infringe both copyright and Community unregistered design right at the same time. One could imagine a grant of a licence to use Community UDR and then issues arising as to copyright infringement, especially as copyright remains national in character and ownership is more readily divided. We would be grateful if the Minister can steer us through some of the issues here and explain why the Government took the view they have. I beg to move.