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All businesses will own IP. Most businesses will also use IP that doesn't belong to them. These blogs share experience of businesses in using IP and our work to help businesses understand IP better.

Levelling Up: how we’re helping UK businesses to build through IP 

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business, Copyright, Design, Design right, Innovation, Levelling Up, Patents, Trade marks
Hand of engineer playing a blocks wood tower game (jenga)

Intellectual property (IP) is crucial to the UK’s future prosperity, so supporting innovation and economic growth is at the heart of the work we do at the IPO. IPO CEO Tim Moss takes a look at how IP plays a major role in the UK’s Levelling Up agenda.

The future of protecting designs: have you had your say yet?

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business, Design, Design right, IPO
Call for views on design IP

We are currently reviewing the UK designs system and launched our call for views on the designs framework in January 2022, which runs until the 25th March. IPO Head of Design Policy, Fiona Warner explains more about what is in the call for views and why it is important for anyone working in design to have their say.

IP matters...to Love Island

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business, Copyright, Licensing, Trade marks

Love it or hate it, Love Island has become one of the UK’s most watched shows, with 5.9 million viewers in 2020. This year, “the most commercialised show on British television” allegedly netted more than £12 million in revenues. Find out how much of the show's spin-off success is based on brands commercialising their intellectual property.

Shh! The importance of keeping your trade secrets, secret

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business, Trade secrets

We receive many customer queries on patents, trade marks, copyright and designs, but we find less is known about trade secrets. We invited Andrew Beale OBE of IP Wales, an award-winning SME business support initiative, to explain what a trade secret is, how it applies to businesses and how it can be protected.

IP-protected, gender-inclusive underwear? That’s Wilde!

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business, Copyright, Design, Inclusion and diversity, Innovation, Trade marks
Wilde Mode Rainbow Briefs

Dundee-based designer, Deborah, creates bespoke pants for everyone from your youngest cousin to your grandad, selling clothes from sizes XXS to 6XL. Her business, Wilde Mode, creates underwear and accessories for everyone, ensuring her products are sustainable, sensory-friendly, vegan and cruelty-free as well as gender and size inclusive. She protects her designs from copycat products using intellectual property rights. 

We spoke to Deborah about how she’s championing inclusivity and why it’s so important to her as a business owner.

Prize catch - Hookpod invention keeps seabirds safe

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business, Environment, Europe, Innovation, Patents, Trade marks

It’s not every day that a business finds a big gap in the market and creates a solution to a major environmental issue, but that’s exactly what Devon-based brothers Ben and Pete Kibel did.

Ben and Pete were nominated for a European Patent Office (EPO) Inventor Award in the SME category for their invention, Hookpod. Read more about how Hookpod protects thousands of seabirds a year.

All about you - the One IPO Transformation programme

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Business, Copyright, Design, Design right, Innovation, IPO, Patents, Trade marks
Image branding for IPO Transformation

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has launched its 'One IPO' Transformation - a five-year programme to transform Intellectual Property (IP) services and enhance the value IPO adds to the UK economy. Debbie Cooke, Head of IPO’s Business Change Team, outlines how developing a world leading IP system can make the UK a more attractive place to invest and drive economic growth.