Infringement

Patent infringement is defined in detailed, technology-neutral terms by section 60 of the Patents Act 1977, reproduced in the Intellectual Property Office's own guidance: 'a person infringes a patent for an invention if, but only if, while the patent is in force, he does any of the following things in the United Kingdom in relation to the invention without the consent of the proprietor of the patent'. What follows is a list of specific acts — making, disposing of, using or importing a patented product, or using a patented process — any one of which, done without consent, is an infringement.

The same underlying idea of unauthorised use applies across the different intellectual property rights, even though each has its own statutory definition. In copyright, for instance, official guidance treats using a work outside a permitted exception as straightforwardly 'infringing' — describing whether a particular use 'infringes copyright' as the central question that the fair dealing exceptions exist to answer. What counts as an infringing act therefore differs between patents, copyright, trade marks, and designs, but the underlying wrong is the same: doing something reserved to the rights holder without their consent.