NIPC Law

On 1 Jan 2008, the EC (including the UK notwithstanding our wonderful PM's prior engagement at the Kirkcaldy Sea Otters' early morning Hogmanay swim around the Bass Rock or indeed to do just about anything to avoid showing enthusiasm for the EU ) accedes to the Hague Agreement . This agreement is a bit like the Madrid Protocol and the Patent Co-operation Treaty in that it facilitates multiple applications for design registration from a single filing. EC accession to Hague will not be anything like as far-reaching as its accession to Madrid since the only sizable countries outside Europe that are party to the agreement are Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Singapore and Turkey, but accession does present a protection option to British design owners that did not previously exist. Even though HMG is not acceding to Hague in its own right, EC accession necessitates amendments to our law. S.11ZA (1) A) of the Registered Design Act 1949 will change from: "The registration of a design...

Three new Orders in Council were made on 14 Feb 2007 adding to the list of countries for whose citizens and residents copyright and performers' right protection is extended and updating the list of "convention countries" for the purposes of the Patents Act 1977 and Registered Designs Act 1949 . The Copyright and Performances (Application to Other Countries) Order 2007(SI 2007 No 273) revokes The Copyright and Performances (Application to Other Countries) Order 2006 with effect from 6 Apr 2007. The only material difference between this order and the previous one appears to be that copyright protection now extends to nationals and residents of Samoa which is very interesting given that the Supreme Court of Western Samoa held that there was no such thing as copyright in that country in Fauolo v Gray [1997] WSSC 1; CP 364 1995 as recently as 5 Aug 1997 (see also my case note on that decision which I published nearly 9 years ago). Clearly the Samoan legislature acted prom...