The Intellectual Property (IP) Bill was given its second reading in the House of Commons earlier this week, having completed its Lords stages last summer, where some amendments were made.
According to the Government, the Bill will help businesses in the UK to become more competitive globally by making the IP landscape easier to navigate and by helping them to protect their IP rights.
Key policies in the Bill include new powers for the UK to implement the Unitary Patent Court Agreement, which is a central part of introducing a single patent across almost all EU countries and could lead to direct savings to UK businesses of up to £40m a year.
In addition, there are measures to help firms assess the strength of their IP case before going through formal and costly legal proceedings with the creation of a design opinions service. There will also be an expansion of the existing patent opinions service.
A criminal sanction for intentional copying of registered designs will also be introduced, which will deter those who knowingly copy UK registered designs and will provide greater protection for the design sector.
It is proposed that the Bill will include an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act to better protect pre-publication research. As a result researchers can validate and analyse their work before putting it into the public domain.
It will also allow the Intellectual Property Office to share information on unpublished patent applications to clear backlogs internationally and will bring in revenue of around £200m a year to the economy as a result of hosting part of the Unified Patent Court in London.
However, the Bill does not deal with upcoming changes to the exceptions to UK copyright infringement, which may be put into law by a series of statutory instruments in the coming months.