| Short Title: | Intellectual Property Act 2014 |
| Parliament: | Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Long Title: | An Act to make provision about intellectual property. |
| Year: | 2014 |
| Statute Book Chapter: | 2014 c. 18 |
| Introduced By: | The Viscount Younger of Leckie 9 May 2013 |
| Territorial Extent: | United Kingdom |
| Royal Assent: | 14 May 2014[1] |
| Commencement: | 1 October 2014[2] |
| Status: | Current |
| Original Text: | http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/18/pdfs/ukpga_20140018_en.pdf |
| Legislation History: | http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/intellectualproperty/stages.html |
The Intellectual Property Act 2014 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 14 May 2014 after being introduced on 9 May 2013.[1] [3] The purpose of the legislation was to update copyright law, in particular design and patent law.[4] The law arose as a result of Sir Ian Hargreaves' Review of Intellectual Property and Growth, an independent report published in May 2011.[5] [4]
Implementation was in part effected on 1 October 2014. One effect of the law was to removed the words "any aspect of" from the legal definition of a design,[6] in order to reduce the scope for legal protection of minor aspects of unregistered designs.[7] For unregistered designs commissioned after 1 October 2014, via section 2 of the Act, initial ownership now belongs to the designer and not the client, unless the parties have contracted for ownership to be otherwise handled.