Medicinal and agrochemical products can be granted a Supplementary Protection Certificate, an intellectual property right associated with patents, to provide up to five years of additional rights and protections once their patents have expired. In order to apply for an SPC, a product must receive approval to be sold on the UK market. Under the Northern Ireland/Ireland Protocol, products to be sold in Northern Ireland must obtain approval under EU law, whilst products to be sold in the rest of the UK will obtain approval under UK law. Currently, this marketing authorisation is only given on a UK-wide basis. This regulation amends the market authorisation process to enable authorisations to be granted for the Northern Ireland market only and for the Great Britain market only.
Documents to download
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Obscene Publications Act 1959: 60th Anniversary (239 KB, PDF)
Whilst the Obscene Publications Act 1959 has subsequently been amended, it still makes it a punishable offence to distribute, circulate, sell, hire, lend or give away obscene material. It defines obscene material as that which is likely to “deprave and corrupt” the intended audience when taken as a whole. This includes not only sexually explicit material, but also that relating to violence and drug taking. It has been argued that material which simply shocks or disgusts, however, will not tend to fall under this definition. As a result, prosecutors have tended not to take action against the written word, but rather focus almost entirely on sexually explicit pictorial material, including: photographs; magazines; films; or websites. Although the Act applies to material broadcast on televisions, stricter tests relating to harms and offence are available under the Communications Act 2003 and the Ofcom broadcasting code.
The Act also includes sections relating to search and seizure and available defences. It creates a power where, in accordance with a warrant, police can seize obscene materials. The Act also offers the defence of ‘public good’. This means that a court would not convict a person if they can justify the publication of the material as being for the public good. For example, that it has scientific, literary or artistic merit. In relation to any film or soundtrack, the individual must justify the material on the grounds that it is in the interests of drama, opera, ballet or any other art, literature or learning. Consequently, prosecutions tend to focus on material which can have little claim to artistic or other merit, where an individual has produced material explicitly to excite the viewer.
Documents to download
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Obscene Publications Act 1959: 60th Anniversary (239 KB, PDF)
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The Audiovisual Media Services (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 govern how on-demand programming and video-sharing platforms will be regulated after the Brexit transition period ends.
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The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 provides the UK Supreme Court and the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland with the power to depart from retained EU case law after the end of the transition period. Draft regulations, introduced by the Government in October 2020, seek to extend this power to the Court of Appeal and other equivalent courts and tribunals. This article looks at the detail of the regulations and recent scrutiny that has taken place.
