No Offence: Criminal Sanctions And Design Rights

In the UK, intellectual property (IP) rights are generally protected as a civil law matter through litigation in the civil courts. Common remedies available to those who successfully enforce their IP at trial include, amongst others, the confiscation of any goods held to infringe the IP in question, injunctions against continuance of any infringing acts, and financial compensation for commercial damage or lost profits.

Nevertheless, in some circumstances IP infringement in the UK may also be covered by criminal sanctions in addition to the usual civil remedies. For example, in the case of trade marks, it is an offence to take unfair advantage of a registered trade mark by applying it to goods without the owner's permission¹, a sanction that is aimed at the prevention of counterfeiting, and justified on the grounds of protecting consumers. In the case of copyright, it is an offence to deal with unauthorised copies of copyrighted works², which, given the ease of