Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Community Designs - consultation on "innocence"


You infringe a design, by selling product you bought from someone else, without knowledge that the design was protected. Should you pay?
That was the issue in J Choo (Jersey) Ltd v Towerstone Limited and Others [2008] EWHC 346(Ch), concerning counterfeit handbags. There is an "innocence" defence in the UK for most forms of IP infringement (copyright, registered and unregistered UK designs and patents), exempting the infringer from damages (though not other remedies) where he did not know and had no reasonable grounds to suppose that the rights existed, but the Court found none for Community designs. The IPO are consulting as to whether to add such a defence for Community designs, and a response is due by the end of September.
Obviously, it makes matters easier if like measures have like remedies. In the case of a Registered Community Design, where there is no mental element, I tend to think that there should be the same "innocence" defence as for other UK rights.
However, for an unregistered Community Design, where copying must have taken place, I don't see why there should be any innocence defence: someone, somewhere, was far from innocent, and caused damage to the proprietor. If the seller was innocent, they can contractually recoup from their supplier and so back the chain to the infringer. The life of the right is so short, at three years, that by the time an infringer has been found and put on notice, much of the life of the design has evaporated. Thus, I can see arguments against in the case of UCD.

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