When the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, commissioned this review in November 2010, he did so in terms which some considered provocative. The Review was needed, the PM said, because of the risk that the current intellectual property framework might not be sufficiently well designed to promote innovation and growth in the UK economy.

The question guiding this review, Could it be true that laws designed more than three centuries ago with the express purpose of creating economic incentives for innovation by protecting creators’ rights are today obstructing innovation and economic growth?

The short answer is: yes. The review has found that the UK’s intellectual property framework, especially with regard to copyright, is falling behind what is needed. Copyright, once the exclusive concern of authors and their publishers, is today preventing medical researchers studying data and text in pursuit of new treatments. Copying has become basic to numerous industrial processes, as well as to a burgeoning service economy based upon the internet. The UK cannot afford to let a legal framework designed around artists impede vigorous participation in these emerging business sectors

This does not mean, however, that we must put our hugely important creative industries at risk. Indeed, these businesses too need change, in the form of more open, contestable and effective global markets in digital content and a setting in which enforcement of copyright becomes effective once more.

The Review sets out how this can be achieved. The review have focused on the main issues, at the risk of ignoring important points of detail, and have tried to set out a clear, strategic argument, supported with just ten recommendations. 

The review urges Government to ensure that in future, policy on Intellectual Property issues is constructed on the basis of evidence, rather than weight of lobbying, and to ensure that the institutions upon which we depend to deliver intellectual property policy have clear mandates and adaptive capability. Without that, the pile of IP reviews on the Government’s doorstep – four in the last six years – will continue to accumulate.