European Commission proposals to criminalise commercial-scale infringements of all intellectual property rights are excessive, the Law Society President has warned. Fiona Woolf said: 'The commission has gone too far in bringing forward these measures and it is not clear that they are wholly legal. The idea of imposing criminal sanctions on patent infringements is worrying. Breaching a patent is not like counterfeiting - it is not the same as making counterfeit copies of CDs, which involve more obvious criminal intent.' The proposals were set to be discussed in the European Parliament this week.