UK Study of Intellectual Property and Growth
A UK Study of Intellectual Property and Growth resulted in a recently published report making recommendations for improving the UK’s copyright system. The report is the result of an intensive 6 month independent review commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron on the basis of a ministerial concern that in a digital age the country’s intellectual property framework was not keeping pace with new innovation and growth models. The results substanciated this theory, finding that the UK’s intellectual property framework, especially with regard to copyright, is falling behind what is needed. The report made 10 key recommendations, which are summed up here.
1. Evidence. Government should ensure that development of the IP System is driven as far as possible by objective evidence.
2. International priorities. The UK should resolutely pursue its international interests in IP, particularly with respect to emerging economies such as China and India, based upon positions grounded in economic evidence. It should attach the highest immediate priority to achieving a unified EU patent court and EU patent system, which promises significant economic benefits to UK business.
3. Copyright licensing. In order to boost UK firms’ access to transparent, contestable and global digital markets, the UK should establish a cross sectoral Digital Copyright Exchange. The UK should support moves by the European Commission to establish a framework for cross border copyright licensing, with clear benefits to the UK as a major exporter of copyright works.
4. Orphan works. The Government should legislate to enable licensing of orphan works; establishing extended collective licensing for mass licensing of orphan works, and a clearance procedure for use of individual works
5. Limits to copyright. Government should firmly resist over-regulation of activities which do not prejudice the central objective of copyright, namely the provision of incentives to creators.
6. Patent thickets and other obstructions to innovation. In order to limit the effects of these barriers to innovation, the Government should take a leading role in promoting international efforts to cut backlogs and manage the boom in patent applications; work to ensure patents are not extended into sectors which they do not currently cover, without clear evidence of benefit and investigate ways of limiting adverse consequences of patent thickets.
7. The design industry. The IPO should conduct an evidence based assessment of the relationship between design rights and innovation, with a view to establishing a firmer basis for evaluating policy at the UK and European level.
8. Enforcement of IP rights. The Government should pursue an integrated approach based upon enforcement, education and, crucially, measures to strengthen and grow legitimate markets in copyright and other IP protected fields.
Small firm access to IP advice. The IPO should draw up plans to improve accessibility of the IP system to smaller companies who will benefit from it.
10. An IP system responsive to change. The IPO should be given the necessary powers and mandate in law to ensure that it focuses on its central task of ensuring that the UK’s IP system promotes innovation and growth through efficient, contestable markets.
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