How the UK is cementing its position as an IP world leader

By Richard God­dard, Pres­i­dent of the Char­tered Insti­tute of Trade Mark Attor­neys

More than 1.5 mil­lion new trade­marks have just been cre­at­ed in the UK, cement­ing Britain as a glob­al pow­er­house for intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (IP). 

Whether busi­ness­es planned to or not, many com­pa­nies now own more UK trade­marks than they did just a few weeks ago, pro­vid­ing con­ti­nu­ity and cer­tain­ty that pro­tects their IP inter­ests. 

Every own­er of an Euro­pean Union trade­mark reg­is­tered by 11pm Lon­don time on Decem­ber 31, 2020 now has an exact copy trade­mark that is ful­ly pro­tect­ed and enforce­able in the UK. These new rights were cre­at­ed at no cost and with­out the need for action by the own­ers, min­imis­ing dis­rup­tion to busi­ness and avoid­ing inad­ver­tent loss of rights.

Trade­marks are valu­able busi­ness assets that pro­tect ideas and inno­va­tion. They allow con­sumers to iden­ti­fy the ori­gin of prod­ucts and ser­vices eas­i­ly. 

The UK is recog­nised as a world leader in IP, a posi­tion it must retain for the ben­e­fit of busi­ness and con­sumers. It is ranked by the US Cham­ber of Com­merce as sec­ond in the world in the IP envi­ron­ment, accord­ing to the 2020 US Cham­ber Inter­na­tion­al IP Index, behind Amer­i­ca. 

IP courts in the UK are high­ly regard­ed and are key venues for resolv­ing world­wide dis­putes. Around the world huge num­bers of IP agree­ments are gov­erned by Eng­lish law, with dis­putes sub­ject to the juris­dic­tion of the Eng­lish courts. 

The UK can be jus­ti­fi­ably proud of inno­va­tions such as the fast track of the Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Enter­prise Court, which pro­vides a cost-effec­tive means of resolv­ing small­er dis­putes, but it must con­tin­ue to inno­vate and invest to ensure busi­ness­es of all sizes have access to robust and time­ly judg­ments in dis­putes. 

While the UK was a mem­ber of the EU, its trade­mark law was har­monised with oth­er EU states. We are no longer bound by those con­straints and there is now scope for the law to diverge from the EU, par­tic­u­lar­ly via UK court deci­sions. 

How­ev­er, busi­ness­es need sta­bil­i­ty and too much change could be dam­ag­ing and threat­en the UK’s posi­tion. 

There are many ben­e­fits to hav­ing a har­monised IP sys­tem with the EU and strong treaty-based links with many oth­er key juris­dic­tions via the World Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Orga­ni­za­tion.

Any­thing that threat­ens this col­lab­o­ra­tion would be detri­men­tal not only to the UK’s world-lead­ing posi­tion, but the busi­ness­es which oper­ate with­in its econ­o­my. 

One area it must get on top of is the exhaus­tion of IP rights, the lim­its on how rights can be used to pre­vent the resale of gen­uine prod­ucts, includ­ing those enter­ing the coun­try from else­where, so-called par­al­lel imports. 

Cur­rent­ly there is a mis­match between the UK and EU posi­tions, and the gov­ern­ment intends to con­sult on pos­si­ble changes to the UK stance. 

The impact of changes in this area could be far reach­ing for brand own­ers and the gov­ern­ment must act to pro­vide cer­tain­ty so busi­ness­es can plan. 

A strong IP envi­ron­ment is impor­tant, but busi­ness­es can only ben­e­fit if they are prop­er­ly advised. To max­imise the val­ue of their IP, busi­ness­es should ensure they have a reg­u­lat­ed IP advis­er who is an expert in the UK on hand. They will always be best placed to advise and work with busi­ness­es to devel­op strate­gies that add val­ue. 

Busi­ness­es with a com­mer­cial pres­ence in the UK deserve to have the cer­tain­ty that the val­ue of their IP is pro­tect­ed. This will help the UK remain a world leader. It is up to the gov­ern­ment to ensure this hap­pens.