HIDDEN ARTICLE ON DESIGN RIGHTS

It isn't often that you find an article on any aspect of intellectual property in the Journal of Business Law, but the January 2005 issue of this Sweet & Maxwell publication contains an extremely good one. The article, "Industrial Design and the Design Directive: Continuing and Future Problems in Design Protection?", is written by Gary Scanlan and Sarah Gale, respectively Reader in Law and Senior Lecturer in Law at City University, London. The article concludes:

"The purpose of the Directive was to achieve harmonisation of the law of industrial design throughout the Member States of the Community .... [I]t is unlikely that the Directive, as implemented, will achieve its purpose in all respects. Harmonisation is not ... the same as standardisation. Nevertheless, how the provisions of the Directive as set out [in the UK legislation] are to be reconciled with the provisions of the Community Design Regulation is a cause for consternation ..."

The IPKat thinks this is worth a read if you practise or study design law in the UK and have had those nagging doubts in the back of your mind as to how the pieces of the design protection jigsaw fit together.