The proposal for a Directive on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights was published by the European Commission in January. Last Wednesday, the UK Patent Office invited comments from all interested parties.
The Patent Office summarised the issues to be resolved as follows:
"Whether or not the proposal should apply to more than counterfeiting and piracy and, if not, what falls within the scope of counterfeiting and piracy (we do not think the broad scope of the proposal is consistent with the legal base chosen);
What provisions that are not required by the TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement should be provided;
How the legitimate concerns of both defendants and third parties are best dealt with;
What provisions that do not currently exist in UK law should be provided and to what extent these would be inconsistent with the civil law as it applies to torts more generally."
It added:
"We do not believe that this proposal should change the existing position on liability of intermediaries as set out in the Copyright Directive and the Electronic-commerce Directive. Nor do we think that this proposal should result in different protection for technical measures applied to copyright material from that set out in the Copyright Directive. We would be interested in views on this and what provision, if any, should be made for intermediaries and technical measures in this proposal in areas outside copyright and related rights."