I feel honoured to be writing the introduction to the 2025 IP Federation Review as the current President of the IP Federation. The IP Federation relies heavily on volunteers from member companies, and these volunteers continue to impress me with their experience and knowledge of IP matters, their understanding of the practical impact IP policy has on business, and the way members from diverse industries can come together to discuss topics to arrive at well thought out, useful policy positions, even on topics where there are diverse viewpoints in our membership. To lead such a tremendous organisation is a real privilege, and I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in the IP Federation for their support.
At the start of my presidency, I set out two priorities: (1) to continue to improve our engagement and profile externally, and (2) to improve our collaboration internally. This Review showcases how we set off with a flying start, following through on these priorities. I focus on a few past and future engagements here, but these and many more are highlighted in more detail in this Review.
From an external engagement perspective, we have formed new collaborations and built upon existing ones. For a long time, we have had a good relationship with CIPA, but this year has seen us really build on this. We have also started to work together with other organisations such as ICC UK and INTA. We jointly produced a report with the ICC UK and CIPA on why patents are essential for innovation and growth and presented this during an ICC UK delegation to the WTO and WIPO. We will continue this collaboration in 2026 to ensure that the positive impact of a high-quality IP system is understood in the lead up to the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14). We are also happy to have signed a collaboration agreement with INTA to support the organisation of the INTA annual meeting in London 2026. We are looking forward to having a strong presence at the event and engaging with officials, colleagues, and similar organisations.
With responses to three UK consultations in 2025, we made a strong start to engaging with government officials. We will continue to actively engage with key stakeholders on the topics of copyright and AI, the UK design framework and standard essential patents (SEPs).
AI tools are increasingly a part of modern innovative industry and help to improve and drive innovation. We understand the concerns of rights holders in the creative industry, and we want to ensure that the right balance is achieved between protecting rights holders and legal certainty for business to utilise AI for innovation.
On the unregistered designs front, we will continue to promote our position that criminal sanctions are wholly unsuitable for unregistered designs because of the complexity of knowing what is protected by an unregistered design and indeed whether it is protected at all. We are also looking forward to engaging in relation to standard essential patents once we receive the outcome of the consultation, which is currently expected mid-2026.
In terms of the second priority of internal collaboration, our diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) committee has been taking the lead on this. Members of our DEI committee have been joining other committees to explore what we can be doing as IP Federation to ensure fairness at all levels in our profession. We are keen to ensure that business continues to have a strong talent pool to call upon which also means promoting STEM topics to young people and ensuring accessibility to our profession. We will continue this work into 2026 and are already supporting IP Reg with their education review which is due to open for consultation in 2026.
As mentioned, this Review highlights some of IP Federation’s achievements in 2025, but takes a different tack from previous years. For those of you who are familiar with our past annual Reviews, you will notice a shift in style and content. We have taken a new approach this year to give you snapshot of our engagements in 2025, split into topic areas, as well as providing some quick read articles to give you more of an industry perspective – for which I would like to thank our contributors, in particular our guest contributors: Andrea Brewster from IP Inclusive and Jodie Albutt from Quell Therapeutics.
I hope you enjoy reading our new-style Review as much as I have enjoyed being a part of IP Federation activities. We certainly have a lot to be proud of, as you will see from the content of this Review, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate with similar organisations, and engaging with government bodies and international organisations.
Global Headwinds and the Battle for Multilateralism in Global IP Policy
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A Year of Quiet Upheaval in UK IP Policy
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Patents supporting innovation: A Rolls-Royce case study
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Sarah Vaughan, Senior Patent Attorney, Rolls-Royce plc