Liveryman has her day at Buckingham Palace!

At an Investiture Ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, Liveryman and Second Assistant Dids Macdonald, CEO of Anti Copying in Design (ACID), received an OBE for services to the UK’s design sector from Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal.

Wearing a Macdonald of the Isles tartan dress designed by Scottish couturier and ACID member Sandra Murray MBE, Dids said on receiving her Honour: “This was a unique and special moment for me but also speaks volumes about the amazing UK design sector and the importance of its intellectual capital with which I have been very proud to be associated.”

Dids was a partner in a successful small company designing and producing decorative accessories, but with success came blatant copying every time a new product was launched. Dids nearly lost her business several times.

In 1996, she co-founded Anti Copying in Design (ACID), a voluntary round table action group, in order to enable ‘Davids’ to conquer global Goliath copyists. At the time there was no trade body to help designers protect their Intellectual Property.

ACID is now recognised as the leading UK design and Intellectual Property (IP) trade organisation helping thousands of designers protect their intellectual property through IP awareness.

Recent SMEs it has supported include ride-on suitcase brand Trunki, design consultancy Black + Blum and kitchenware company Robert Welch.

After a 15 year campaign spearheaded by Dids, the Intellectual Property Act became law in 2014 and it is now a crime to intentionally infringe a registered design. See the ACID website for more details.