The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published its 2024–27 strategy report which highlights its efforts to provide an IP system which encourages investment in creativity and innovation. The new strategy will build on its existing work and will sharpen its focus so that it can achieve its mission.  The IPO, over the next three years, will focus on high-quality, efficient and accessible services, policy which supports innovation and the economy, and a high-performing organisation, with skilled people, connected by shared purpose. The pillars of the IPO’s strategy are its services, policies and the organisation itself. Its strategic goals include transforming its services, developing its people and culture, ensuring IP rights are respected and enforced, renewing governance and planning and being financially sustainable.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published a report produced by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on Unlocking IP-backed Financing on 19 March 2024, as UK banks are beginning to engage with Intellectual Property (IP) backed lending. This report finds the UK meets the correct conditions to make IP-backed lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) viable. IP intensive industries account for £300bn a year, over a quarter of the UK's output. The report highlights challenges to firms using IP to raise growth funding, 'including low levels of awareness among financiers and industry, a lack of secondary markets for IP assets, confidence in IP valuation, and limited visibility of IP in business reporting'.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published a review of the UK’s design protection framework, providing an evidence-based assessment of how the regime operates and identifying policy considerations for potential reform. The review follows the government’s 2025 consultation on modernising UK designs law and was prepared by Professors Bruce Tether and Estelle Declaye, drawing on legal and economic analysis, case law, registration data and a survey of 501 UK design-active firms. It finds that the UK design economy is significant in scale and, in some respects, comparable to patent-intensive sectors, but that registered design rights appear to be underused, including in highly design-intensive industries. The report notes that the current framework comprises two unregistered design rights (UK unregistered design right (UDR) and supplementary UDR), registered design rights and overlapping copyright protection, creating a layered system that may contribute to confusion, with survey evidence indicating limited awareness and understanding of unregistered rights. It further finds that annual UK design registrations have increased since Brexit to approximately 70,000–80,000 filings across a wide range of sectors, although most UK firms register only one or two designs. The review also identifies instances of registrations being used in online marketplace settings to block competitors and reports that around one quarter of surveyed firms experienced recent copying of their designs, although many disputes were resolved without substantial cost or delay.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published Designs Practice Note (DPN) 01/26 revising its guidance on graphic symbols, icons and graphical user interfaces (GUIs), including animated designs. This updated guidance replaces the previous practice outlined in paragraphs 2.11–2.13 of the Registered Designs Examination Practice Guide and establishes new requirements for animated design applications. Under the new provisions, applicants must use separate views for each animation step and clearly indicate in the product description that the design is animated. The notice also provides detailed examples of acceptable and unacceptable design representations for static icons, animated sequences, and GUI applications. It clarifies that animated designs must convey a clear overall impression that can be unambiguously derived from static representations, with the option to include disclaimers explaining transitions between views.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published statutory guidance setting out changes to the search and examination of UK patent applications under the Patents Act 1977 (PA 1977) following the UK Supreme Court's judgment in Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2026] UKSC 3. The guidance explains that the judgment immediately changed how PA 1977, s 1 should be interpreted by replacing the previous Aerotel approach with one aligned to European Patent Convention case law. Patent examiners must now determine whether an invention has technical character, recognise that patent eligibility, novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability are separate requirements, and assess only those claim features that contribute to the invention's technical character when considering novelty and inventive step.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published the IP crime survey results for 2023–2024, containing IP-related statistical data based on the annual IP survey of Trading Standards. It offers insights into the scale and scope of IP crimes from the perspective of Trading Standards Officers, including case studies of recent investigations. The most investigated products in the period 2023–2024 were tobacco-related and clothing products, although vaping-related products have seen a significant increase. Physical premises remained the most investigated location, and counterfeit goods were often connected to other criminal activities, such as organised criminal groups, money laundering, drug dealing, modern day slavery and benefit fraud.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published its 13th wave of the online copyright infringement tracker survey on 20 June 2025. The bi-annual study monitors digital behaviours and copyright infringement across online platforms in the UK population aged 12 and above. The IPO has made the methodology available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish to facilitate international replication of the tracking system. The survey, delivered by AudienceNet, continues the copyright monitoring programme initiated with Ofcom in 2012.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published several Freedom of Information Act responses, providing valuable insights for legal practitioners in the intellectual property field.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has released statutory guidance regarding the changes on the way it assesses inventions involving artificial neural networks (ANNs) for excluded subject matter. This follows the Court of Appeal's decision in Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks v Emotional Perception AI Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 825, where it held that a company's AI invention is a computer under the Patent Act 1977 (PA 1977). The guidance further urges patent assessor to treat ANN-implemented inventions like computer implemented invention pursuant to PA 1977, s 1(2) and to apply the ‘Aerotel approach’ to examine if an ANN-implemented invention contributes in a technical way.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has released a report that compares trends in different technologies relating to the UK government's ten-point plan. It also looks at intellectual property (IP) patenting trends relating to green technology as a whole, both globally and in the UK. Globally, growth in green technologies has been higher than both brown technology and total growth. Green technology has seen over 500% growth in 2020 compared to 2000. The report also looks at the use of the IPO’s Green Channel, which allows for accelerated processing of green patents. The analysis shows increasing popularity of the Green Channel, with over 4,000 patent applications using it.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) annual Trading Standards survey for 2024-25 reveals multiple successful prosecutions under the Trade Marks Act 1994. Notable cases include a £270,000 confiscation order in Berkshire, a 20-month suspended prison sentence in Ceredigion with ongoing Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings, and multiple premises closure orders across the UK. The report, covering April 2024 to March 2025, shows increased enforcement activity with 70% of local authorities responding. Trading Standards officers secured convictions for counterfeiting offences across various jurisdictions, with courts issuing closure orders, confiscation orders and criminal sentences.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published its Trading Standards Survey 2025-26, covering April 2025 to March 2026 and highlighting intellectual property (IP) crime issues investigated and observed by local Trading Standards teams across the UK. The survey received responses from 142 of 189 local authorities and identifies dangerous counterfeit toys as a increasing enforcement concern, with 67% of responding authorities reporting investigations, up from 21% in 2024-25. Cigarettes and tobacco remained the most commonly investigated counterfeit goods, reported by 89% of respondents, followed by clothing at 69%. The survey also found that 64% of responding authorities observed links during investigations between counterfeiting and organised crime groups, up from 48% in 2024-25, while 29% reported links between people committing IP crimes and serious organised crime groups, up from 18%.