Design Law Reform Urgently Needed to Protect Britain’s Creators, says Dids Macdonald

Dids Macdonald OBE, co-founder and chair of Anti Copying in Design (ACID) and Past Master of the Furniture Makers’ Company, has called for reform of the UK’s design law framework, arguing that current protections fail the very creators they are meant to serve.

Speaking at the Westminster Forum on the future of the UK’s intellectual property on 8 January, Macdonald described the consultation on design law reform, closed at the end of November, as the culmination of more than a decade of campaigning. While welcoming the Government’s stated aim to modernise the UK design system so it is “clearer, fairer and more accessible,” she warned that reform without meaningful enforceability would change little in practice.

Macdonald highlighted the immense importance of the design economy, which contributes close to £100 billion to UK gross value added and supports nearly two million designers, most of whom operate as sole traders or small and micro-businesses. From everyday products to iconic objects, she said, design underpins modern life and represents a core national asset deserving of real protection.

At the heart of her speech was a stark message: intellectual property is not just a legal issue, but a moral and economic one. A system that allows systematic copying signals that creativity is expendable, discouraging innovation, slowing growth, and driving talented designers out of the sector. Rights that exist only on paper, she argued, quietly erase the future of British design.

Macdonald described what she termed the “illusion of protection.” While designers are told they are protected by unregistered and registered design rights, enforcing those rights often requires prohibitive legal costs, prolonged stress, and the risk of financial ruin. In such circumstances, protection becomes theoretical, and copying, particularly by large corporations, becomes a rational business strategy.

She painted a picture of a deeply unequal system, one that favours corporate “Goliaths” over individual “Davids.” For large companies, legal disputes are routine; for small designers, a single legal letter can be an existential and costly threat. This imbalance destroys deterrence and creates a chilling effect, where success increases the likelihood of being copied and originality becomes a liability.

Concluding, Macdonald urged that reform must go beyond guidance and education. She called for stronger unregistered design rights, clearer tests and remedies, alignment with copyright standards, and improved deterrence, including criminal provisions for deliberate and intentional infringement. Only by making infringement more costly than compliance, she said, can the UK truly support its designers and secure the future of British creativity.

If you’d like to see her speech, you can view the presentation.