27 November 2002

This information is provided courtesy of Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free on-line information service.

www.law-now.com

UK Anti-counterfeiting Law Strengthened

A new UK law has changed the penalties for copyright and
trade mark theft and will help enforcement agencies to pursue the
Infringers.

The Copyright, etc Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Act 2002
received Royal Assent on 24 July 2002 and came into force on
20 November 2002. The Act amends the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988 and the Trade Marks Act 1994. The main
provisions of the Act are:

- Increasing penalties for copyright offences from 2 years to
10 years imprisonment and/or unlimited fine in line with
trade mark law and conspiracy to defraud, this also now
applies to the production of unauthorised decoders
- Strengthening police search warrant power so that warrants
may be obtained for all copyright and trade mark offences,
including possession and sale of infringing articles
- In executing the warrant any article may be seized if the
police reasonably believe it is evidence of infringement
e.g. the copyright owner or a trade association may request
police to enter the premises of a business suspected of
using unlicensed software and seize any PC and server on
which the software may be stored to use as evidence
- Amending the law on forfeiture of copyright infringement
to be consistent with trade mark infringement so that all
such infringing goods which have been seized can be ordered
by the court to be forfeited

Last year UK industry lost £8.5 billion from fake goods, and
the Exchequer lost £1.5 billion in unpaid VAT. One in three
software applications is unlicensed, and nine in ten
computer games sold are pirate copies. There is growing
evidence that the money raised from cheap counterfeits is
funding organised crime, the drug trade and terrorism.
Following the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, the FBI
found strong evidence that the terrorists had financed their
acts by selling counterfeit textiles on Broadway. There is
also evidence that the funding of the IRA and ETA is linked
to counterfeit handbags, clothes and pirate videos.
Counterfeiting is a popular way of raising cash for such
groups because it has a high profit margin and sanctions
have rarely been enforced. The new Act will make it easier
for rights owners and trade associations to protect intellectual
property rights and reduce the profitability of counterfeiting.

For further information, please contact Stephen Whybrow by
telephone on +44 (0)20 7367 2183 or by e-mail at
stephen.whybrow@cmck.com , Susan Barty by telephone on
+44 (0)20 7367 2542 or by e-mail at susan.barty@cmck.com,
Lucy Kilshaw by telephone on +44 (0)20 7367 2376 or by
e-mail at lucy.kilshaw@cmck.com or Lydia Watts by telephone
on +44 (0)20 7367 2054 or by e-mail at lydia.watts@cmck.com