The government today announced an overhaul of the UK’s designs system, including new powers for the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to check whether a design is genuinely new before it is registered and, for the first time, a small claims court route for registered design disputes.
The package is the government’s formal response to an IPO-led consultation that closed in November 2025. According to the government, the UK has about 80,000 design businesses, an estimated 92 per cent of which are lone designers or microbusinesses. It said the sector contributed close to £137bn to the economy in 2023 and supports more than 2m jobs.
The government will introduce legislation, when parliamentary time allows, to implement the changes that require it.
Tackling anti-competitive filings
Under the plans, the IPO will be able to consider whether a design is new and whether it has “individual character”, meaning it creates a clearly different overall impression from anything already made public.
The government said some applicants register designs created by someone else, copy a competitor’s product images or marketing materials, or file designs for generic or well-known products they had no hand in creating. Those registrations are then used to send takedown notices to online marketplaces. Affected businesses reported spending between £10,000 and more than £50,000 to resolve such cases, according to the government.
The IPO’s consultation document, published in September 2025, said a sample of six months of registrations suggested about 9 per cent of registered designs were pre-existing, a figure it said could include designs filed in good faith.
The government will also consider legislating to give the IPO clear powers to refuse bad-faith applications, after further work to define bad faith in practice and the evidence needed to prove it.
Courts, deferment and digital designs
Registered design cases currently go through the Patents Court or the multi-track of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC). The government will take steps to allow them to be heard in the IPEC Small Claims Track, a lower-cost route through the courts where compensation claims are capped at £10,000.
A new 30-month deferment period will let designers apply for protection early and delay making a design public for up to 30 months, bringing the UK into line with the EU and the international Hague systems.
The law will be updated to make clear that designs including animation, movement or transitions can qualify for registered protection, and the IPO will accept moving image files as part of applications.
The rules on unregistered design protection will be simplified, with qualification and duration aligned. Supplementary unregistered design protection will also apply when a design is first disclosed anywhere in the world, which the government said removes a post-Brexit disadvantage for UK designers launching at international trade shows or online.
Registration will be streamlined, with multiple objections set out in a single report, standardised response deadlines and new powers for the registrar to correct errors on the register. The existing framework for computer-generated designs will stay in place while the government monitors the use of AI.
The government has ruled out criminal offences for unregistered design infringement, concluding there is insufficient robust evidence that they would be a balanced, proportionate and effective remedy.
Chris McDonald, the minister for intellectual property, said: “Britain’s designers are some of the best in the business, but small firms and independent designers too often struggle to reap their hard-earned rewards because of an outdated system.”
Ian Murray, the creative industries minister, said: “These reforms will make the system simpler, fairer and more affordable, so that smaller businesses can protect their ideas and focus on their growth.”
Industry response
Kevin Scott, president of the IP Federation, said the body “welcomes the confirmation that criminal sanctions for unregistered design infringement will not be introduced”.
Laura Weir, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, said: “We warmly welcome the government’s commitment to strengthening design protection, particularly its recognition that the breadth of unregistered design rights must be preserved, which is vital for fashion businesses.”
Helen Brocklebank, chief executive of Walpole, said: “There is more work to do, and we look forward to continuing to work constructively with the IPO to ensure the UK design system is effective, accessible and supportive of design-led businesses.”
