The UK Intellectual Property Office decided upon overhauling its Industrial Design landscape to facilitate a shift towards a more thorough and modernised system.

1. The latest "Digital Design" Guidance

On April 22, 2026, he UKIPO issued Designs Practice Notice (DPN) 01/26. For creative design or marketing professionals, this is a critical update, as it elucidates how to protect non-physical assets:

• GUI & Icon Protection: Explicit guidelines now exist for registering Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), web pages, and digital icons.[1]

• Animated Designs: The UKIPO now formally accepts sequences of images (up to 12 views) to depict movement and animation in a single registration.

• Dynamic Impression: The core requirement is that any person inspecting the register must "clearly and unambiguously" understand the overall impression of the moving design.

  
  

2. Major Legislative Reforms[2]

The UK government is currently processing feedback from the 2025 Design Protection Consultation to simplify the patchwork of UK design rights. Expected changes include:

• Reintroducing Examination: After 20 years of pursuing "self-declaration," the UKIPO is considering bringing back search and examination powers to reject designs that lack novelty before they are registered.

• "Bad Faith" Provisions: To combat "design squatting" (common on online marketplaces), a new provision is being introduced to allow the UKIPO to object to applications filed with dishonest intent.

• Opposition Periods: Unlike trademarks, designs currently cannot be opposed during application. New reforms propose a pre-registration opposition period to let third parties challenge a design before it’s granted.

• Extended Deferment: The UK may increase the "secrecy" period (deferment of publication) from the current 12 months to up to 30 months, aligning with the EU and the Hague System.[3]

  
  

3. Fee Escalation[4]

As of last month, the UKIPO has implemented a general fee increase, averaging 25% across patents, trademarks, and designs. This is the first significant hike since 2016 and is intended to fund the new digital "One IPO" transformation project.

4. Post-Brexit "Cloned" Rights

A key administrative shift took place on 1 January 2026. For any UK trade marks or designs that were cloned from EU rights after Brexit:

• Owners can no longer rely on use in the EU to prove "genuine use" in UK legal proceedings.

• If a party represents a brand with these rights, it must now demonstrate active use precisely within the UK market to protect them from "non-use" revocation challenges.[5]

  
  

5. AI and "Computer-Generated" Works[6]

The UK remains one of the few jurisdictions with a specific law for "Computer-Generated Works" (CGW), where a human author is not mandatory.[7] While the government’s March 2026 Report on Copyright and AI primarily focused on text and data mining, it reaffirmed that the UK is evaluating whether the "originality" requirement for AI-generated designs should be lowered or redefined to keep the UK competitive in the AI design space.

Feature written by Kushraj Singh, Senior Legal Correspondent, The Global IP Magazine.

Email Kushraj: newsdesk@northonsprmarketing.com