We are the official government body responsible for granting Intellectual Property (IP) rights in the United Kingdom (UK). These rights include:

• Patents
• Designs
• Trade marks
• Copyright

As part of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), we are responsible for the role of IP rights in supporting innovation.

Our Corporate Plan sets out what we plan to do in the coming year.

Our Annual Report lets you know what we have done in the past year.

We are also an Executive Agency of the DTI under the Office for Science and Innovation.

As an Executive Agency of the DTI we are directed and controlled by corporate governance rules to ensure that we, supply public services of the highest quality, share good ideas, control costs and above all deliver what we are supposed to.

On 2 April 2007, we changed our name to the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO). This change was recommended in the Gowers Report, published on 6 December 2006. The Government accepted this recommendation.

The Patent Office name has been used for many years. During this time, businesses built upon other forms of 'intellectual property', such as copyright, trade marks and designs, have often commented that the name does not reflect all our responsibilities. This has caused confusion over who is responsible for these other rights, and also how important we and the Government consider those rights to be.

All forms of intellectual property are important for successful and competitive UK businesses. This is reflected in the range of recommendations made in the Gowers report.

The report’s main recommendations will help us to enforce intellectual property rights, and support British businesses both at home and abroad. These are issues we began to deal with in our own reform programme, 'Patent Office for the 21st Century'. So it is even more appropriate that these matters will be included in our corporate plan when we become the UK Intellectual Property Office.

A number of changes need to be made to the law, but this does not prevent us from using our new name. To avoid any doubt we will use the words 'UK Intellectual Property Office is an operating name of the Patent Office' on our material until the legal changes have been made.

The UK Intellectual Property Office is pleased to have observer status within the IP Awareness Network.

Central Enquiries 0845 9 500 505

Our staff will answer questions about all aspects of intellectual property and any other aspect of the work of the Office.

Staff are not qualified to give opinions on registrability, advice on infringement or conduct searches. Nor can staff provide advice on specific applications that are already in the system.