Brighton's Broadband Brush-Off

Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has rejected Brighton and Hove’s request to be allowed to bid for a slice of a £100 million fund to introduce superfast broadband to 14 UK cities.

Cities with more than 150,000 dwellings are eligible to bid, meaning Brighton and Hove narrowly misses out with just 125,000 dwellings.

The “Let Brighton Bid” campaign, led by Brighton Pavilion’s Green MP, Caroline Lucas, argued that Brighton and Hove should be considered for the scheme despite the shortfall in meeting the criteria, because of the city’s substantial digital industry.

Whilst Hunt rejected the appeal, he did commend the city’s enthusiasm for high speed broadband, and expressed his commitment to meeting and working with the city leaders to cultivate its reputation as a “technology and culture hub”.

Although the rejection has been met with disappointment by campaigners, they remain resolute that this is not an end to the matter, and determined to take the Culture Secretary at his word.
Alex Morrison, chairman of Wired Sussex and director of media consultancy, Cogapp, says:

“The fight is far from over and we will keep pushing to meet him and do all we can to push Brighton and Hove forward as a digital media hub”.

DMH Stallard at Interiors 2012

ACID Accredited Exhibition Interiors Birmingham is the UK’s largest event within its industry and includes halls complete with Furniture, Furnishing Accessories, Design Interiors, Lighting, Lighting Collection, Collection and Outdoor Collection.  

For all exhibitors to Interiors, DMH Stallard and ACID will be on hand on Stand B28 in Hall 2 to give one to one advice on design protection and IP clinics on a whole range of subjects.

Offering visitors a world of British design over 12 halls of the NEC, Interiors Birmingham is the ultimate showcase of the best in traditional and contemporary, interior and exterior products and design for the trade. Delivering pioneering show features alongside new suppliers, product launches, new designers, ideas and interiors trend prediction areas, this event has the complete interiors solution.

Interiors Birmingham takes place from 22-25 January at the NEC, Birmingham.

Patent Box – reduced tax on patent profits

What better way to encourage growth in UK innovation and products than reducing the level of tax payable on patents? And, this is exactly what the government is proposing to start in 2013. Following a consultation last year, the government has drafted legislation (and guidance) to reduce the corporation tax for qualifying patents to only 10% from the existing rates of 20-27.5%. The wide scope of the legislation means that all companies that receive royalties for patents and sell or use products or processes protected by patent for new and existing IP could benefit.

Qualifying Patents would include patents granted by the IPO, European Patent Office, regulatory data protection, supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) and plant variety rights and the Patent Box would cover products paid for separately or embedded in the price of products. However, identifying and calculating the relevant taxable income is not going to be straightforward and some say this might even diminish the appeal of the Patent Box savings altogether.
We’ll report back when we hear further.

DMH Stallard at Cloud Expo Europe 2012

Frank Jennings, Head of Commercial at DMH Stallard, will be presenting at Cloud Expo Europe 2011 on "Best practice in cloud contracts - how to stand out from the crowd" on 26 January 2012 at National Hall Olympia in the Security and Governance theatre from 14.20 -14.45.

As cloud services mature, customers are shopping around for the best solution. Customers are asking how can they ensure their data is secure, how can they trust their cloud service provider when they want to exclude all risk and how do they get their data back or move it to another provider? In a crowded market, cloud service providers and resellers are looking for ways to stand out from their competitors by offering some of these protections to customers without taking on too much risk. This session will clarify how providers and resellers can offer protections in their customer contracts by adopting best practice recommendations promoted by the Cloud Industry Forum. These range from transparency and accountability regarding the location of data centres, documenting their management systems and processes, and clearly stating which of the customer’s losses a cloud provider will cover. For more information, please click here.

Frank will also be presenting "Negotiating Cloud Contracts" with the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) on 25 Janaury from 15.00 - 15.30 in the CIF theatre.
Click here to register for this free event or here for the full programme. To view examples of our recent experience in relation to Cloud Computing, please click here.

Cloud Expo Europe is now established as the leading seminar-led exhibition, focused on cloud computing and virtualisation. The longest running European event, now in its third year, Cloud Expo Europe will run at the National Hall Olympia, on 25th - 26th January 2012.

IP and Design - Reform is on the Way

The Government announced yesterday its first assessment of the need for reform of the design intellectual property framework. In May 2011, in his report to the Prime Minister, Professor Hargreaves concluded that design had a “very important contribution to make to growth” to the tune of £33 billion, yet he was critical of the policy makers whose role in supporting IP in this significant branch of the economy had been neglected.

The Government plans to publish a formal consultation on how to proceed in late spring 2012.
Nick Kounoupias, IP specialist at DMH Stallard and ACID’s Chief Legal Counsel said, “I am delighted to see that the possibility of introducing criminal sanctions for unregistered design right infringement is finally on the Government’s political agenda. It has been for too long anomalous that copyright and trade mark infringement can in appropriate cases be punished with a criminal sentence whilst unregistered design right infringement cannot. The harm caused to small and medium sized businesses by the flagrant and systematic copying of their designs is horrendous and to the layman in tantamount to theft. Accordingly it should be dealt with in the same way.”

ACID’s CEO Dids Macdonald said, “I welcome this assessment for design reform. However, it is important that any further research makes clear the relationship between (registered) design rights and innovation in the context of product design. The majority of the UK’s 232,000 designers (in 55 different design disciplines) rely on unregistered (copyright, design and trade marks) and informal rights. In this initial assessment, it is clear that UKIPO has listened and understands the problems facing many SME’s within design. Now the challenge will be to address them sensibly, practically and proactively with more action and less words”.

ACID also urges the Government to fully consider supporting the UK’s designers with the introduction of criminal sanctions for unregistered design right infringement, retaining UK unregistered rights protection and ensuring that in reforming the small claims access to justice system, they fully consider the relative effectiveness of remedies available and costs v outcome.

This announcement by Government is timely because in 2012 ACID will re-launch its “Commission it, Don’t Copy It” positive campaign aimed at retail buying departments which is “win win” all around. The designer is paid a commission and a royalty, The Retailer may use their purchasing power to produce the products more cost effectively and also has the opportunity to create a UK design signature range, thus, actively supporting UK Design and respect for IP in CSR. The consumer still gets an excellent deal but in the full knowledge that they are buying an original design and supporting British design.

DMH Stallard is a member of ACID, is trade association for designers and manufacturers with a diverse membership ranging from individuals to multinationals and spanning many industry sectors. The organisation is committed to fighting design theft and lobbying Parliament for design law reform.