UP FRONT
S
ometimes it is important to read very carefully through the entirety of documents issued by the Legal Services Board (LSB). Recently, the LSB made its formal submission to the Competition and Markets Authority’s call for evidence on the operation of the legal services market. Buried deep within the LSB’s response is paragraph 58, which talks about ‘smaller regulatory bodies’ (a term that is undefined, though we have to assume that IPReg would be counted amongst them). In relation to these smaller bodies, then comes the killer comment: ‘we are increasingly concerned about their capacity to deliver high-quality regulation that commands public confidence’. No evidence of any kind is produced to back up this assertion, other than a broad sweeping generalisation about how a system of multiple regulators ‘makes it difficult for the sector to move forward in a coordinated way’. For the IP profession, this new approach from the LSB spells a huge problem. The distinctive thing about IP, surely, is that it is a very bespoke profession. Attorneys are skilled in ways that ‘normal’ legal practitioners are not. The learning process to enter the profession is entirely specific to IP. The results of attorneys’ work are distinct. For a bespoke profession, I believe passionately that we need a bespoke regulator.
2
EDITORIAL
Focused regulation Let’s just imagine for a moment that IP attorneys are lumped in, for their regulation, with a much broader profession – solicitors, say, regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Do we think for an instant that the SRA would know anything about IP, would be at all interested or concerned, would realise any of the professionspecific matters that they ought to be
Chris Smith
bureaucratic mind to be a neat one-sizefits-all approach that could ‘simplify’ a complex landscape of regulatory bodies. But it would be based on a fundamentally foolish assumption. Trying to bundle everyone together doesn’t make for better regulation. I realise all too clearly that IPReg hasn’t always got everything right. We have, I think, been steadily improving
IPReg will mount a fierce argument in support of the need for specific IP-focused regulation for the profession. considering? Do we imagine that – by comparison with the thousands of solicitors up and down the country – the SRA would be at all interested in the needs of the much smaller number of patent and trade mark attorneys? IPReg will certainly mount a fierce argument in support of the need for specific IP-focused regulation for the profession. I very much hope that IP professionals will want to make the same case to the LSB. This might appear to a
in the way we’ve handled our regulatory task. And we’re determined to continue this progress – especially through the fundamental review of our rules and procedures that we are about to undertake. But at least we understand what IP is all about, and how important it is, and we mustn’t let the LSB wilfully remove that understanding.
CIPA JOURNAL OCTOBER 2020
Lord Chris Smith, Chair of IPReg
www.cipa.org.uk
