In December 2022, Adam Williams was announced as IPO’s new CEO. After 13 years at the IPO, he isn’t a totally unknown quantity, but we talked to Adam to find out more about his background, his IPO journey and his aspirations for IPO’s future. Where did your career journey start? After university, I joined the Royal Air Force as an RAF Navigator, flying the Tornado fighter bomber. Several years later saw me working for the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in London. It was a really interesting time, working on operations with the UN and the EU alongside Civil Servant colleagues in the MOD, Foreign Off ..read more

There’s now less than one year to go until we start piloting the new ‘One IPO’ service for patents customers. In the latest of our series of transformation blogs, Lucy Mills, Project Lead, tells us about the new search service that will provide new tools to help you search and analyse IP. I’ve been working on major IT changes at IPO for over 30 years. When I first started, we had a purely paper-based search system for trade marks and no IT systems at all. To now be involved in such a big transformation of our search services is incredibly exciting! Why are we building a new search service? At ..read more

Wheeling their way into the future, are Hornit - an innovative and creative British business that produces a wide range of cycling products. We spoke to their CEO Tom de Pelet about how Hornit has grown and how intellectual property rights have strengthened his business. Find out how to protect your IP using our guidance pages. Hornit's bike rack, CLUG, holding bikes upright. Copyright © Hornit, 2019 ‘The world’s loudest and the world’s smallest’ The Hornit business started with the invention of the loudest bicycle horn in the world, the Hornit dB140. Created to make riding in busy towns a ..read more

Collaboration and partnerships are key to the IPO’s efforts to combat IP crime and form the core of the IPO’s new counter-infringement strategy. The IPO’s work with our partners is crucial for the strategy’s success. Our partnership with Trading Standards is a central element of this jigsaw. Marcus Evans, IPO’s Deputy Director of Intelligence and Law Enforcement explains… IP crime – an ongoing threat to us all IP rights are only as valuable as our ability to protect them.  The power of brands in adding value to our economy is beyond doubt. But the infringement of IP rights, and IP crime ..read more

Following National Inclusion Week (26 Sep – 2 Oct) it’s now National Dyslexia Week and we’re reflecting on our accessibility progress here at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). As I browsed through the archives, I came across a blog written in 2016 by an IPO colleague. In ‘Researching the realms of accessibility’, Sarah describes the brilliant work undertaken with the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) ‘to ensure our services are accessible to all our customers’. This was before my time here, so it was really interesting to read. I’m proud to say that we’ve continued in this good vein wi ..read more

It’s just over a year since we launched our One IPO Transformation programme - a ground-breaking five-year project, in planned stages, that will see the biggest modernisation of our intellectual property rights services ever experienced by the IPO and its customers. Emma Ford, One IPO Transformation Project Lead, explains what you, our customers, can expect from our new patent application service...including  a first glimpse of what it will look like. Emma Ford, Lead Product Manager at the Intellectual Property Office There are two fundamental questions people ask us about intellectual ..read more

At the Intellectual Property Office we like to celebrate intellectual property every day. British IP Day, however, gives us that extra excuse for sharing some great IP success stories. We spoke to three very different companies whose valuable Intellectual property has elevated their success to another level. Together with support from Local Enterprise Partnerships, the Growth Hubs and partners Innovate UK Edge, they have used IPO’s free IP business tools and the IP Audit scheme to identify and use the IP in their business to help them grow.   VisitMôr - enhancing and enriching magical vi ..read more

Did you know that businesses with an environmental benefit can request accelerated processing of their patent application?   Intelligent Energy is a UK-based, world-leading fuel cell engineering business, focused on the development of lightweight, high-efficiency fuel cell technologies. They are just one of the companies who have made use of IPO’s Green Channel – a fast track patent application process. We spoke to Head of Intellectual Property (IP), Dan Ninan to find out more. IE-SOAR 2.4kW fuel cell module powering a Gryphon drone. Their business has a large patent portfolio cent ..read more

The countdown begins! This weekend we celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, a landmark anniversary. It's not every day a country sees a monarch marking 70 years of service on the throne.  With the excitement levels ramping up, what activities are you planning to mark this historic event?   My weekend will be filled with plenty of exciting family activities for this Royal extravaganza. We’re starting with the Trooping of the Colour, which marks the Queen’s official birthday. As I sit and reminisce with my grandmother about the street celebrations through the years, it got ..read more

Have you ever wondered how safe your intellectual property is when stored on your computer? We invited Paul Peters of the Wales Cyber Resilience Centre for Wales to give us some tips on how we can help make our IP cyber-safe.   Intellectual property. It’s something you create with your mind. It could be the name of your product or brand, your invention, the design or look of your product, the things you write, make or produce.   For many companies these might be considered their most valuable assets…so how can you help prevent your IP from being accessed and used without y ..read more