COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 30 October 1956)

§ LORD MANCROFT

My Lords, this Amendment is still on industrial designs. Subsection (2) of this clause, as drafted, had the effect that, if a design is registered in respect of one class of article, its use, even without registration, elsewhere in the field of industry will not prejudice the artistic copyright it enjoys in those other fields. This is not, however, our intention. What we are striving to do is to ensure that the only protection available to a person who applies his design industrially in any particular field is that available to him by registration under the Registered Designs Act, 1949. This Amendment and the next provide accordingly. If the proprietor does not register his design in respect of each and every article to which he applies it industrially, he loses protection for it under the Copyright Bill in respect of those articles to which he so applies it.

It is, however, a fundamental principle of the clause that an artistic work which is applied industrially shall not enjoy an industrial design protection for longer than the maximum —that is, fifteen years —obtainable by registration, and that thereafter the design as industrially applied becomes public property. Amendment No. 28 therefore also provides that fifteen years after the first occasion on which the design is used industrially copyright protection is lost throughout the whole industrial field. 1168 This corresponds with subsection (1) of this clause in which at the expiry of the period of registration the same thing happens. I am afraid that this industrial design point is a technical one, but I understand that it is an uncontroversial point and is generally required. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.