The UK Intellectual Property Office’s 2026–27 Corporate Plan places service transformation and AI copyright policy among its main delivery priorities. The official publication record shows that the plan was first published on 11 May 2026. With the patent side of One IPO moving into optimisation and legacy-system retirement, UKIPO plans to begin designing the trade mark service on the same shared technology base. It also acknowledges operational pressure: rising trade mark volumes have created backlogs in hearings and tribunals, while patent workloads remain affected by application growth and the system transition.
On policy, UKIPO will work with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on the government’s next steps following the AI and copyright consultation, while also developing a strategy for its own use of AI. The practical message is not that a settled AI-copyright framework has already arrived. Rather, digital migration, backlog management and policy design will run in parallel. Trade mark applicants should build more time into filing and dispute schedules, while AI developers, platforms and rights holders should monitor the next measures on training-data transparency, licensing, technical standards and enforcement.
