Record numbers of small businesses are going to court to protect their intellectual property, particularly over digital dispute issues, according to law firm Hugh James.
The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) heard 308 claims in 2014, compared to 287 in 2013. Figures for the first half of 2015 indicate that the upward trend is set to continue, with 183 claims heard by the court from January to August this year.
Tracey Singlehurst-Ward, senior associate at Hugh James, said: “The IPEC has been a great leveller as it has encouraged small businesses that previously might have felt too intimidated or lacked the resources to make a claim against their larger competitors.
“Around one in ten SMEs who enter into a dispute over intellectual property (IP) will end up settling outside of court, and so these figures show just a small part of a much larger trend. It’s clear that the IPEC is encouraging more businesses to defend their IP whether it makes it to the court or not.”
She says the IPEC’s streamlined procedures speed up cases and, unlike other courts, it caps the costs recoverable from the losing side at a maximum of £50,000. Disputes concerning copyright of digital content take up an increasing share of the court’s workload as more small businesses move to online platforms. Original content is easily reproduced and reused without permission.
Singlehurst-Ward said: “I would estimate that three quarters of the cases we are seeing now are concerned with digital copyright issues and this is likely to increase in the next few years.”
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