84 Legal rights Dids Macdonald, CEO of Anti Copying in Design (ACID), explains to SME designers that taking legal action against copyists doesn’t have to cost the earth Did you know there is an Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) Small Claims Track (SCT) available to SMEs to take legal action against infringers? It provides a streamlined and cheaper way of resolving lower value and less complex intellectual property claims for businesses and individuals for claims up to the value of £10,000, although remarkably, registered design cases still cannot be heard. Electronic filing - IPEC small claims will be issued, and documents filed online in the seven centres outside London. For those who have not used electronic filing before, further guidance can be found on GOV.UK including on how to register as a user, the payment of fees, security and data protection, as well as the five simple steps required to use the system, and where to go for further help. The email address for enquiries about electronic filing is EfileSupport@justice.gov.uk ACID’s recent webinar Taking Copycats to Court? provided a wealth of questions with help and advice from ACID legal affiliate Adam Turley of McDaniels Law. How do I assess the value of my claim as a claimant? It is difficult to assess the value of the claim as it is ultimately linked to the sales that the Defendant has made of the copied product or infringing trade mark. The defendant will sometimes give an indication of this information in response to a cease-anddesist letter. You can however also look at the defendant’s website or social media for clues and look at how your sales have been impacted since they commenced infringing or look at the profit you make on your product so that you have an idea how much you are losing for each sale they make. If you license your rights, you can consider what level of licence fee you would normally charge. How do I know what the claim issue fee will be in the SCT? The level of the court fee is based on the value of the claim. There is a form (EX50) which provides a table setting out the level of court fee relative to the claim value. If my case goes before a non-IP specialist judge, will this be a disadvantage? Are they competent to make a decision on an IP
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