Patent Enforcement Project

One of the outcomes of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Innovation Report, which was published in December 2003, was that we should conduct a feasibility study of a proposed new institutional arrangement which would help small and medium enterprises protect their intellectual property. The conclusions (94Kb) from this study were published in July 2004.

A study entitled: "The possible introduction of an insurance against costs for litigation in patent cases" by the European Commission into the feasibility of different schemes was published in June 2006.

This concluded that voluntary schemes were economically unviable. Meanwhile, a small working group made up of experts who have a wide range of intellectual property experience has begun looking into this issue in the UK.