My Lords, this amendment, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Young of Norwood Green, would place a power in primary legislation for the registrar to amend the period of deferment of design applications from one year to up to 30 months.
When a design is registered, the applicant is issued with a certificate and the design is published in the Official Journal. The deferment period allows applicants for registered designs to delay the date of registration where they might want to keep the design confidential. There could be good commercial reasons for this; for example, a business might not be quite ready to market a product and would want the registration, and therefore publication, to coincide with the entry of its product on to the marketplace.
The powers under Section 36 of the Registered Designs Act 1949 enable rules to be made prescribing time limits, including for the purposes of Section 3(5) of the 1949 Act to which this amendment is addressed. In addition, Clause 12 removes the requirement to use secondary legislation to make minor changes in the way the IPO functions. This will enable the IPO to specify by means of directions any necessary changes to the content and layout of forms relating to registered designs. A note explaining what these directions are expected to contain has been made available and placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The note sets out that one anticipated change will be to extend the period of deferment for publication of design applications for up to 30 months. The detail contained in this amendment is more appropriately dealt with in rules or directions. I hope this will provide sufficient reassurance to the noble Lords such that this amendment can be withdrawn.