The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has launched a comprehensive consultation on potentially significant reforms to the UK designs framework. This consultation, running until late 2025, proposes fundamental changes that could reshape how businesses protect their designs in the post-Brexit landscape.

Background

This consultation is the latest and most significant step taken by UK governments since Brexit in undertaking a review of the UK designs system to ensure it is “fit for the future and supports the design sector”. Aside from the Brexit-related changes, the last significant reforms were in 2014 following a consultation in 2012. 

In 2022, a call for views and survey took place inviting views to help inform future government proposals. The subsequent response from the government set out areas for further consideration and committed to seek stakeholder views on options by consultation. In February 2025, the IPO published a further survey seeking views on the overarching principles which should shape the future of the UK designs system (see our DesignWrites article, UKIPO design survey – last chance to respond!)

The government states that survey responses have informed this latest consultation. 

Objectives

The consultation has several key objectives:

1. Improving the validity of registered designs through targeted measures such as novelty checks and bad faith provisions.
2. Simplifying the complex designs regime, making it more accessible and easier to understand.
3. Addressing issues relating to unregistered designs, providing greater legal certainty for businesses.
4. Ensuring the framework adequately protects emerging forms of design, including virtual and animated designs.
5. Exploring how the system should respond to computer-generated designs in an era of advanced AI. 

Overview 

The consultation is broken down into nine sections and runs to nearly 90 pages. Each section includes an introduction to the area of designs law or practice under scrutiny and sets out a number of options. In some instances, the IPO indicates its preferred option for reform. The last two sections (H and I) are calls for evidence on:

• Extending criminal sanctions to unregistered designs. (They were introduced for registered designs in 2014.)
• Including registered design claims within IPEC’s small claims track. (Only unregistered designs are currently included.)

We comment below are some of the key aspects of sections A to G of the consultation document. 

The government is urging all stakeholders from individual designers and small businesses to large enterprises and legal experts to engage with the consultation which closes on 27 November 2025.   

Search and examination reforms (section A1)

The IPO stopped searching and examining designs for novelty and individual character in 2006 to align with the EUIPO. The consultation presents three options:

• Option 0: No change to the current system. The government considers that this option should be discounted.
• Option 1: Introduce powers to allow the registrar to carry out a search in certain situations. 
• Option 2: Introduce a two-stage system (similar to Australia), where a design can be partially registered without search, and a full search and examination is required to enforce a design.

Bad faith provisions (section A 2)

The government is seeking users' views on introducing an explicit bad faith provision into designs law, which would give the IPO clear powers to object to applications filed in bad faith. This could include applications: for well-known products; where another company’s product photographs are used by a third party to seek protection; and anti-competitive applications more generally.

Again, it is clear from the consultation document that the government does not consider that keeping the status quo adequately addresses the current problems facing designers.

Opposition and opposition mechanisms (section A3)

Unlike for trade marks and patents, there is no mechanism in designs law to allow third parties to oppose a registration or to submit observations to the IPO on the allowability of a design application. 

The government proposes four options ranging from maintaining the status quo to introducing pre-registration opposition or observation periods, and respondents are asked to rank them, and provide their thoughts.

Deferment provisions (section B)

Publication of a design at registration can create commercial difficulties for companies with long product lead times, and deferment provides a solution by allowing applicants to keep designs confidential while preparing for commercialisation. The government considers that an 18-month explicit deferment period would provide the best balance between designer and third-party interests, but invites comments on this and other options.

Digital age reforms (sections C and D)

The government proposes allowing applicants to file moving or animated designs and to submit new file formats such as video clips and CAD files when applying for design protection. It also asks in this context whether similar changes should be made to those recently introduced in the EU, including broadening the meaning of design.  (For our summary of the EU reforms, see DesignWrites, Welcome, EU Design! Make Yourself Comfortable!, Jan Bärenfänger.)

The government is also looking to change the current protection for computer-generated designs without a human author. 

Simplification of unregistered designs and overlap with copyright (section F)

As the consultation document notes the “evolution of design protection, and the ebb and flow of the boundary with copyright over the years has resulted in a patchwork of IP protection which can subsist in designs”. 

The government’s proposals on consolidating the unregistered designs patchwork include retaining supplementary unregistered designs (SUDs) and abolishing UK design right, or creating a single unregistered framework. (Following Brexit, the government created SUDs in the UK to provide an equivalent to the unregistered Community design (UCD)).

It would prefer not to make any changes to copyright legislation at this point but allow further clarity to develop through case law. 

Post-Brexit disclosure issues (section G)

Before Brexit, UK businesses could obtain UCD protection across all EU member states through single disclosure. Post-Brexit, there's no mutual recognition of disclosure between the EU and UK. This has created practical difficulties for UK design businesses operating across the UK-EU border, as they must choose between UK or EU unregistered design protection.

The government has set out five possible options for consideration and does not currently have a preferred one:

• Option 0 - Do nothing.
• Option 1 - Unilaterally recognise simultaneous disclosure in law.
• Option 2 - Introduce a grace period for unregistered designs:
• Option 3 - SUD is created following first disclosure anywhere in the EU which has come to the attention of relevant trade circles in the UK.
• Option 4 - Creation of SUD following first disclosure anywhere in the world which has come to the attention of relevant trade circles in the UK.

Key takeaways

The UK's design sector is an economically important one, contributing £97.4 billion to the economy (4.9% of total GVA) as of 2019. In 2021, there were over 80,000 design businesses, mostly microbusinesses with fewer than nine employees. As is emphasised in the ministerial forward to the consultation, “effective intellectual property protection is essential for these businesses to thrive and continue driving economic growth”. 

It is clear from comments made throughout the consultation document that the government is envisaging making some changes to the current regime in the UK, depending on the responses it receives. It seems that ultimately there may be some areas where the UK becomes less aligned to the EU designs system (eg if novelty searching is reintroduced) and others where it might be more aligned (eg in relation to unregistered rights).

Whatever is on the horizon for designers, it will inevitably take time for any proposed changes to go through the legislative process and take effect, so there will be an opportunity for businesses to review their existing protection and enforcement strategies.