Correspondence with my MP on Clause 13 of the Intellectual Property Bill

Here is the email that I sent to my MP at 22:23 last night:

"Dear Jason,

You will shortly be required to consider the Intellectual Property Bill which was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Younger, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Intellectual Property on 10 May 2013.

I have analysed the Bill in detail and written a detailed commentary entitled "The Intellectual Property Bill" 28 May 2013 which I hope you may find useful.
The Bill contains a lot of useful provisions and is generally to be welcomed but it contains one provision, clause 13, which would create a new offence of infringing a registered design punishable by 10 years imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both. 

During the consultation on the proposed provisions of the Bill, Sir Robin Jacob a former Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal and now a leading academic lawyer who is regarded by most as the greatest authority on IP law of the age, objected strenuously to the proposal in "Submission to the UK IPO on the issue of criminal sanctions for the deliberate copying of designs.". You will see that Sir Robin was supported in his objections by the Professors of IP Law from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bournemouth and King's College London.   Despite the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary the Minister blithely ignored those objections.

Before voting on clause 13 I should like you to ensure that the arguments of Sir Robin and those of the other distinguished scholars and indeed my own are put to the Minister. I appreciate that you will be whipped on this issue but I hope that good sense will prevail and that this ill judged provision will be withdrawn.

With very best wishes

Yours sincerely

Jane"

My MP's replied at 00:35 this morning. I am not a Conservative but I have t say that Mr. McCartney is the best constituency MP we have had in the Colne Valley since the legendary Richard Wainwright. I am particularly impressed that as he works as hard as I do,

"Dear Jane, 

Many thanks for the briefing on the Intellectual Property Bill. I now consider myself fully prepared for when it comes to the House of Commons. I shall look out for clause 13. 

Kind regards, 

Jason 

Jason McCartney MP

Member of Parliament for Colne Valley"

 "

I responded to Mr. McCartney at 07:45 this morning:

"Dear Jason,

Thank you for your email.

I can ask no more of you than that.

With best wishes

Yours ever,

Jane"

I have to congratulate ACID on its effectiveness as a lobbyist in getting a proposal that is so obviously bereft of merit this far. I do hope that the Minister sees the sense of the case against clause 13, which is overwhelming, and that he withdraws this unnecessary and unwise provision from an otherwise welcome bill.