News

Small is beautiful | 22 November 2011

The UK Government has announced the intention to introduce a new small claims service at the Patents County Court (“PCC”). This was one idea which was proposed in the recent Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property (pdf).

Apparently the new service will limit fixed costs, and place a cap on damages of £5,000 per case. This is clearly too low for patent infringement cases, where the actual damage suffered by claimants is likely to be many times higher, and the small claims service is only available for pursuing infringers of other rights: copyright, trade marks or designs. This does, incidentally, underline the misnomer in the “Patents” County Court, which may potentially have jurisdiction for trying infringement of any Intellectual Property right, not just patents.

Baroness Wilcox, Minister for Intellectual Property, is reported as saying: “We hope to have the new system in place by this time next year”.

This development is to be welcomed. In combination with other government initiatives, like the Patent box, it seems that the present administration is serious about helping business, especially SMEs, to utilise and exploit intellectual property.