Alfrank Designs Ltd v Exclusive (UK) Ltd & Another [2015] EWHC 1372 (IPEC) is a ruling by Judge Hacon, sitting in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, England and Wales, on the calculation of damages to which a furniture wholesaler was entitled following the infringement of its unregistered EU and United Kingdom design rights in two ranges of dining furniture (one of which, the 'Modena' design, is depicted on the right). The damages were assessed on the basis that the plaintiff received

(i) its loss of profits, calculated at 20 per cent of the defendants'infringing sales which represented lost sales of its equivalent tables;

(ii) lost profits on lost sales of "conveyed goods", such as dining chairs and occasional furniture, that were not covered by the infringed designs but which would normally be purchased at the same time as the plaintiff's dining tables;

(iii) a 25 per cent royalty in relation to those infringing sales which had caused it no loss of sales.

According to the judge, the assessment of a reasonable royalty was based on the hypothesis that immediately, before the first act of infringement, the parties had negotiated a licence which would render the infringer's acts lawful on a willing licensor/licensee basis. In these hypothetical negotiations, both the plaintiff and the defendants -- being familiar with the retail furniture trade -- would have known that a significant benefit to the defendants of obtaining the licence would be that licensed sales of the otherwise-infringing tables would drive sale of dining chairs and other furniture. This did not introduce double counting since, in such hypothetical negotiations, the defendants would have agreed to pay something around 25 per cent of the profits generated from the sale of the licensed tables and driven sales of other furniture (para 37).

This ruling -- assuming that it is not appealed -- provides encouragement to design owners to sue in the IPEC -- where procedures are relatively swift, cheap and informal and damages are quite generously assessed.