My Lords, briefly, I express some bafflement, especially in the light of discussion in Committee, at what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has said. On the one hand, half his speech was devoted to saying that the criminalisation of registered design rights under the Bill was wrong and therefore should not proceed. On the other, the second half seemed to say that, on the basis that it would proceed, it should be amended to add words such as “deliberately”, as in Amendment 4. Looking at Clause 13, however, it is quite clear that mens rea, as the term is used in criminal law, is contained within the clause as it stands.
I can understand the position of Sir James Dyson. He believes in principle that it is not right to criminalise registered design infringement. I happen to disagree with him. A number of particularly small designers represented by bodies such as Anti Copying in Design—ACID—feel strongly that this is a very important protection. It may not be favoured by the IP Federation, which represents the larger companies and their designers, but this is something that is very much to be desired by the smaller designers. The argument used that there is a chilling effect on innovation is completely rebuttable. I am sure that my noble friend will go through that in his own way.
Taking the second limb of the objections of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, it is clear that Clause 13 does exactly what he wants his amendment to do. There is no doubt that the act has to be deliberate on reading new Section 35ZA(1)(b)(i). I cannot see that there is any ambiguity there.