Regulatory Reform (Registered Designs) Order 2006

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Regulatory Reform (Registered Designs) Order 2006. The noble Lord said: This order is all about providing the public with a designs registration system that is as quick, accessible and easy to use as possible. It will make it possible to administer the Registered Designs Act 1949 far more in tune with modern trading conditions and also in a manner consistent with the registered Community design system offered by the Community trade marks and designs office in Alicante, which grants a single unitary right across all 25 member states. Prior to the registered Community design system becoming operational in April 2003, the UK received around two-thirds of its design applications through intellectual property agents, the remainder being received directly from individual designers or small businesses. However, the situation now is that 95 per cent of newly registered designs, which are effective in the UK, are registered at Community level. As a result, the user base of the national designs registry has reversed, with about two-thirds of the total number of applications coming from small businesses without any legal representation. There are, therefore, still recognised benefits to the businesses that do not need, or cannot afford, to register their designs at Community level in being able to register their designs in the UK alone. This is partly because prior disclosure in any member state, especially through registration, will put a designer in a strong position to resist and, if necessary, to invalidate any Community or national design registration gained by a competitor at a later date. These proposals will therefore be of considerable interest to designs applicants and to the intellectual property profession. The procedure of applying for the registration of new designs will be simplified. Unnecessary burdens will be removed, yet care has been taken to ensure that these new measures do not undermine the interests of the public in general. In particular, the introduction of a multiple design application system will offer savings in terms of the time taken to complete an application to register a number of designs at the same time and also savings with a new fee structure to reduce the cost of registering such multiple designs. My department has consulted widely and has met with a cross-section of individual designers, as well as with representatives of the legal profession who specialise in intellectual property. I am satisfied that these proposals are accepted as sound and that they reduce processing complexity without unduly affecting the balance between rights holders and third parties. As such, they have been welcomed by those who represent the interests of small and larger businesses alike. Articles 3 to 5 of the draft order seek to remove burdens from the examination process by stopping the requirement on the registrar to satisfy himself that the design passes the tests of novelty and individual character. At present, only a minority of designs in the marketplace is registered. That had made examination of these grounds very problematic, as such designs are not available to be searched in the registers maintained by the national and Community authorities. This matter was compounded by the new criterion for novelty introduced when the designs directive was implemented in the United Kingdom in 2001, as practically every earlier design in any marketplace in the world must be considered. This makes it impossible for an examiner to carry out a conclusive search in all the relevant overseas territories in order to satisfy himself that a design is indeed a new one. These problems led the Patent Office to take the decision in 1999 to limit the number of applications it examined to cases where a particular examiner was aware of relevant early designs. The uncertain and somewhat arbitrary nature of this process will be abandoned when these changes take effect because the registrar will no longer be able to refuse to register a design on the grounds of lack of novelty or individual character. This will thus remove the current uncertainty as to whether, and to what extent, any particular design was searched and determined to be new before it was registered. Articles 11 to 14 of the draft order seek to introduce a multiple design application system so that applicants or their professional representatives may file as many designs under the cover of one application as they wish and without any administrative restrictions. This new system will largely align us with other national systems as well as with the registered Community design system. Article 15 of the draft order deletes the prohibition on the public inspection of certain classes of registered designs contained in Sections 22(2) and 22(3) of the 1949 Act. This prohibition means that some classes of registered designs cannot be inspected by the general public for a period of two or three years after registration, even though they may be enforced against third parties during that period. It is proposed that new rules made under the Registered Designs Act will require an applicant to provide his consent for the publication of any new design filed at the registry. Such consent may be withheld for up to 12 months, but the designs will not be registered until consent has been given. Once it is given, the designs will be published immediately after registration. This new provision will also give applicants a degree of control over the timing of the publication and consequent registration of their designs to coincide with launching a new product on to the market. Article 17 of the draft order is designed to make it easier for a proprietor to restore a registration that he has allowed to lapse due to non-payment of the renewal fee. It will have no impact on the general public other than to ensure that the proprietors of registered designs are able to reinstate their legitimate rights in a greater number of circumstances. I thank the Members of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for finding that the present proposals are appropriate to be made under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 and for recommending them to the House. The Committee in another place has also considered the proposals. It concluded that they remove burdens within the meaning of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 without removing any necessary protections or preventing the exercise of any existing rights or freedoms. Both committees have now unanimously recommended that the order be approved. I beg to move. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the draft Regulatory Reform (Registered Designs) Order 2006 [23rd Report from the Regulatory Reform Committee].—(Lord Sainsbury of Turville.)