For many businesses, especially start-up and SMEs, taking legal action against those who copy creative work, brand names or logo, is too expensive, protracted and risky. The underdog is often advised to walk away or accept the copyright breach, without proper action being taken against the offender.
However, a change in the law that came into affect on 1st October, will help smaller intellectual property (IP) claimants to ensure that their creativity is not used or abused by businesses with more financial clout. On Monday, the small claims track became available, a simplified procedure for mounting IP claims, which would include all cases involving claims of £5,000 or less. There are also plans to increase the value of claims heard to £10,000, though it is not clear when this will be available. The small claims track will allow more SMEs to bring about IP abuse claims, without the need to go down a very expensive legal route.
The big IP stories at the moment tend to revolve around file sharing and smart phone patents, but the main IP rights - copyright, patents, trade marks and designs - protect creativity across all sectors.
The introduction of the small claims track will be of particular benefit to photographers and designers whose works are regularly infringed, but for whom the costs of bringing legal action are often too great compared to the potential benefit of, for example, a licence fee for the photograph.
The small claims track will only cover claims for straightforward copyright, registered trade mark and/or unregistered design infringement. All other IP claims made under the small claims track will be heard at The Patents County Court (PCC).
There is only one PCC, based in London, which covers the whole of England and Wales. For those who are based outside of the capital, they will not necessarily be forced to travel to London to get a judge's decision, as telephone hearings are available. The new procedure is intended to be as user-friendly as possible and to be a fast and inexpensive option; hearings, for example, will mainly be in a judge's chambers rather than a more formal court room.
The small claims track should be enormously helpful for those who derive much of their income from exploiting their own creative intellectual property. It will stop them from feeling that they need to walk away from what is rightly theirs, due to the costs involved.
Managing the Unmanageable for Law Office/Firms Management Intellectual Property Monetization Is More of a Moral Issue
0 comments:
Post a Comment