Last week, the Queen’s Speech set out a number of reforms to Intellectual Property (IP) laws in the UK, as part of a new Intellectual Property Bill.
The new IP Bill contained reforms to ‘unjustified threats’, which will see that solicitors no longer run the risk of being personally sued for ‘making threats’ when warning businesses or people of potential infringement proceedings for IP breaches.
The news shows that the Government has taken on board recent recommendations from the Law Commission, which suggested similar reforms.
The Government has confirmed that the new Bill will “exempt professional legal advisers from liability for making threats, if they are acting on instructions from a client and in their professional capacity, so that they can help settle disputes,” The Queen announced on Wednesday 18 May.
The Intellectual Property Bill will force rights holders to focus all allegations on the source of alleged infringement, by making a “clearer distinction between approaches made to different parts of the supply chain,” she said.
The Bill is expected to become law in coming months, and also contains proposals to make it easier for companies to settle IP disputes.