Professor Estelle Derclaye Impact Work
Funded by the University of Nottingham (Research Priority Area), Professor Estelle Derclaye produced two notable articles: "An Empirical Analysis of the Design Case Law of the EU Member States" (2019) IIC (co-authored with O. Church and G. Stupfler) and Derclaye "EU Design Law: Transitioning Towards Coherence? 15 Years of National Case Law" in N. Bruun, G. Dinwoodie, M. Levin, and A. Ohly (eds.), *Transition and Coherence in Intellectual Property Law*, Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Together with Professor Stupfler, she successfully applied for a University of Nottingham ESRC Impact Accelerator Grant. This grant enabled her to present the research to European Commission staff, who provided valuable feedback and demonstrated significant interest in the paper.
The EU Intellectual Property Office invited Professor Derclaye to present the first paper for a live-streamed worldwide webinar and she was also invited to present the research in several other outlets (including the UK Intellectual Property Office, IPRE 2019 and EPIP 2019); the latter was sponsored by the World IP Organisation (WIPO) who also showed interest in the research's impact.
In 2020, the European Commission’s Directorate General in charge of industrial property rights, issued its the evaluation report on the design directive and design regulation and several important conclusions in the evaluation report rely on Professor Derclaye’s and Stupfler’s works above. In 2022, the Commission issued two proposals to revise the design directive and regulation which have now been adopted. Follow future action.
In 2022, the UK Intellectual Property Office commissioned Professors Derclaye and Tether (Manchester) to write a report on the last decade of design litigation and registrations in the UK. It is currently being peer-reviewed and it will serve in its forthcoming plan to reform UK design law.