Assessment of the relationship between design rights and innovation

In May, Professor Ian Hargreaves delivered his report, "Digital Opportunity: an Independent Review of IP and Growth". Chapter 7 of that report dealt with designs. Professor Hargreaves concluded that design had a "very important contribution to make to growth". But he found that there was a lack of evidence on how well the design IP framework operated to support growth and innovation, and on how best to optimise it to best meet the needs of business.

In response we undertook to publish by the end of 2011 our assessment (2.74Mb) of whether there was a need to simplify the design IP system. So as to have evidence to inform our assessment, we launched a "Call for Evidence" and survey of business.

This document pulls together the findings of the research published at the joint Design Council / IPO Designs Workshop, giving a summary of the current state of our research and the need for more. It also records the suggestions for reform of the design IP framework that have been submitted to the Call for Evidence and survey. In the next 6 months we now need to decide, with colleagues across government, what potential reforms we would like to include in formal public consultations that we expect to launch in 2012.