Number of complaints to Secretary of State under s296ZE CDPA

The request was successful.

Caitlin McGivern

6 August 2014

Dear Intellectual Property Office,

I am writing in connection with the current process of issuing a notice of complaint to the Secretary of State regarding overly restrictive technological measures, set out in s296ZE of the CDPA 1988.

I would be grateful if you could supply me with the following information:
1) How many complaints have been received
2) How many complaints have been upheld
3) The precise nature of which complaints have and have not been upheld
4) If possible, the years in which the above complaints took place.

I would prefer to receive this information electronically.

Yours faithfully,

Caitlin McGivern

foi, Intellectual Property Office

Dear Ms McGivern,

Thank you for your email requesting information regarding current process of issuing a notice of complaint to the Secretary of State .

Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and will be answered as soon as possible within twenty working days.

If you have any queries about this request do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Sadie Rowlands
Records Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

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foi, Intellectual Property Office

Dear Ms McGivern,

Thank you for your email of 6 August 2014 asking for information about complaints to the Secretary of State under s296ZE the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

1) The Regulations on s296ZE came into force on 31 October 2003. Nine Notices of Complaint have been issued to the Secretary of State since that time.

2) All of the notices of complaint were in respect of computer programs so none qualified for consideration by the Secretary of State under s296ZE.

3) Because all of the notices of complaint were in respect of computer programs, none were upheld as they did not qualify for consideration by the Secretary of State under s296ZE.

4) We are unable to provide a breakdown of the number of notices per year, because we estimate that the effort required in extracting that information from our records would cost in excess of the appropriate limit for FOI requests.

I should explain that Section 12 of the FOI Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the Intellectual Property Office holds the information, then locating, retrieving and extracting it.

We estimate that it will take us in excess of 3.5 working days to provide a breakdown of the number of notices received per year, therefore the fourth part of your request will not be processed further.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and you may request a review by submitting a customer feedback form via our website at:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/about/feedback/fee... or email [Intellectual Property Office request email] .

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely,

Alison Smith
Information Rights Manager
Intellectual Property Office
Tel: 01633 814587
Email: [Intellectual Property Office request email]

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