Your intellectual property (IP) rights are one of your firm’s most lucrative assets. Therefore, it is vital that you safeguard your IP at all times, to ensure you continue to generate revenue and retain your ability to compete with other businesses. With the UK recently voting to leave the EU, Turner Little asks: how could Brexit impact your firms IP rights?
EU Trade Marks
With EU Trade Marks (EUTMs), you can shield your business’ essential branding tools e.g. logos, in all of the organisation’s member nations, via the EU Intellectual Property Office. But once the UK has left the EU, EUTMs will no longer be valid. You will have to register your trade marks with the UK Intellectual Property Office for them to be valid in this country. As experts, Turner Little can provide you with the advice you need to handle trade marking matters in a post-Brexit environment.
Registered Community Designs
If you operate a manufacturing company, you may have used Registered Community Designs (RCDs) to safeguard your product designs. It is likely that the way RCDs are protected and enforced in the UK will change significantly, following the referendum. Once Brexit occurs, the UK will not be party to the EU regulations which enforce these rights, so your RCDs will lose validity. You will therefore have to apply for additional national protection to protect your novel product designs in the UK.
Patents and Supplementary Protection Certificates
UK patents are governed by the European Patent Office (EPO). This is administered by the European Patent Convention, not the EU, so Brexit will probably have a limited effect on your patent rights. As long as the UK remains an EPO signatory, you will still be able to apply for patents in the Office’s member states, while foreign patents should still be enforceable within British borders. However EU laws do govern Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs), which are designed to lengthen the duration of patents for inventions like pharmaceutical discoveries. Therefore, it is likely that your SPCs will no longer be enforceable in a post-Brexit UK.
Proposed Unitary Patent System
Business information portal Mondaq writes that the EU is considering whether to create a Unitary Patent System. This would allow for the development of a single patent application and a single Unitary Patent Court (UPC) throughout the EU. This would only apply to EU member states, so you will not be able to utilise it once the UK is no longer an EU member. If you have a unitary patent and it is infringed in the UK, you would have to enforce your IP in UK courts, rather than the UPC, imposing extra cost and administrative burdens on your company.
Effect on litigation
Brexit is likely to significantly effect IP enforcement and litigation. British courts will no longer be able to issue you with EU-wide injunctive relief when your IP rights are infringed. You will need to bring enforcement proceedings in EU and UK courts when dealing with European violators. Existing injunctions will probably remain enforceable in cases where they are supported by a UK-specific injunction provided by a British court. The way national IP legislation which originates from EU law is interpreted will also most likely change. UK magistrates will be able to depart from pre-Brexit domestic and EU case law, which could change your firm’s IP rights going forward.
Seek expert advice
It is unclear how exactly Brexit will impact your company’s IP rights. We will not receive clarity on this issue until the nature of the UK’s relationship with the EU in a post-Brexit world has been clearly defined. It is more important than ever that you seek expert help to safeguard your business’ lucrative IP. Turner Little provides the trade mark services required to shield essential branding materials, so you can promote your business safely and effectively, whatever happens next.
Turner Little
Turner Little was founded in 1998 and it has since become a well-established UK based professional Company Registration Agent, Registered Bank Intermediaries and Business Consultants, as well as Trust provider. You can receive our monthly newsletter by signing up using the form below.
