The IPEC Leaves Its Cap On

The caps that are in place for the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), formerly known as the Patents County Court (PCC), provide claimants and defendants alike with certainty with regard to damages/account of profits and orders in relation to costs. This case (Abbott and another v Design & Display Ltd and another [2014] EWHC 3234 (IPEC)) focussed on how the cap relating to awards of damages/account of profits should be applied in actions involving more than one defendant.

The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) is a specialist IP court designed to handle lower value IP cases. There is a cap of £500,000 on the financial remedies (damages/account of profits) recoverable in the IPEC, but the cap can be lifted by agreement of all parties involved in a particular action. The court does not have any discretion to lift the cap. There is also a cap of £50,000 on the total costs that are recoverable in the IPEC (by the winning party), which is