As we reported in July 2016, the Government repeal of section 52 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 has now come into effect.

The repeal allowed a short transitional period for selling off existing stock, and this has now come to an end. If you hold any remaining replicas that could fall within the scope of copyright in an iconic design, these need to be destroyed immediately, or you should approach the copyright owner for a licence.

Mere "possession" in the course of business was originally considered to be an infringement following this repeal, meaning that businesses that had previously purchased replicas for their shops and restaurants (for instance) could have been caught even though they had no intention of trading in those products. However, Gowling WLG submitted comments on the draft, and the Government acknowledged the problem and clarified the Commencement Order so that it does not cover mere possession in most instances. This should remove risk for a number of businesses.

As a reminder, the repeal also affects 2D images of protected products. This could affect architects, CAD software producers and book publishers, where they show images of iconic products. Depending on the product protected, it may be that these organisations will now need a licence.

It is worth bearing in mind that copyright owners will have a high hurdle to overcome to take advantage of this repeal; to attract copyright protection, the article must be a sculpture or a "work of artistic craftsmanship". These terms have not been the subject of large amounts of case-law, but what there has been (including Lucasfilm) suggests they will be interpreted extremely narrowly.