On 29 March
Head of IP Tony Catterall was
invited to join a select group of
East Lancashire business leaders in
meeting Baroness Wilcox to discuss
issues of concern to East Lancashire
manufacturers in the context of the Hargreaves Report on
intellectual property.Tony
was joined at the ELCCI by John
Carter of Graham & Brown; Ian
Blackburn, Sales Director of
Senator; Tony Holt of Linemark; Val
Pilkington of PMT and Mark Crabtree
of AMS Neve.
A common theme was the problems
created by Chinese infringers and
Tony Catterall explained to Baroness
Wilcox that he had dealt with four
infringement cases in the last
couple of years involving dishonest
forgery of documents by Chinese
suppliers, in each case purporting
to provide a false provenance to
their infringing products. These
remarks were echoed by John Carter,
who explained that his company had a
whole range of wallcovering designs
copied by a Chinese company which
when sued went into liquidation and
started again under a different
name. Ian Blackburn confirmed that
Senator’s chair designs had been
copied by unscrupulous Chinese
businesses almost immediately after
they were launched in the UK.
Tony also canvassed the Baroness
on the need for increased education
among SME’s regarding their IP
rights. He called for greater
publicity from the UK Intellectual
Property Office as to the needs of
SME clients and not just individuals
or start up businesses, where much
of their publicity material is
currently targeted.
Tony Catterall’s contribution to
the meeting was well received by
Baroness Wilcox and her Government
colleagues and Tony has been asked
to send written submissions to BIS
for inclusion in their response to
the Hargreaves report.
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