The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has recently published the government’s response to the consultation on the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property (IP) rights, which confirms that the UK+ exhaustion regime will remain in place.
What is the UK+ regime?
Before the UK left the European Union (EU), the UK were a Contracting Party to the European Economic Area (EEA) and adhered to the principle of regional exhaustion. This meant that, once IP-protected goods were legitimately placed on the market in the EEA by the right holder or with their consent, these rights were to be considered to be exhausted. As a result, goods could freely be imported and exported within the region of the EEA without obtaining the right holder’s permission.
From 01 January 2021, following the end of the Brexit transition period, the UK government implemented a unilateral application of the EU’s regional exhaustion regime, namely the “UK+” regime. This regime ensured that IP rights in goods are exhausted in the UK when they were first placed on the market in the EEA, enabling parallel importation of goods from the EEA to the UK without the right holder’s permission.
As mentioned in the paragraph above, this arrangement is unilateral, meaning that IP rights in goods first placed on the market in the UK are not considered to be exhausted across the EEA, since the UK is no longer a member of the EEA. Therefore, permission is required from the rights holder to export IP-protected goods from the UK to the EEA.
What was the consultation, and what was the government’s response?
The government launched the consultation in June 2021 to gather responses from stakeholders as to the most appropriate exhaustion regime for the UK.
The government proposed the following four options:
- Option 1: Maintain the UK+ regime
- Option 2: Move to a national exhaustion regime
- Option 3: Move to an international exhaustion regime
- Option 4: Move to a mixed exhaustion regime
The consultation closed in August 2021 and received 150 responses, the majority of which preferred the UK+ regime to be maintained.
After years of deliberation, the UK government has now responded to the consultation, confirming that the UK+ exhaustion regime will remain in place permanently. The response was published on 15 May 2025, and the consultation outcome can be found on the UKIPO’s website.
In the response, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Digital Government, Feryal Clark MP, considers the regime to be “…a stable, well-understood regime that meets our objective to provide balance by having parallel importation laws which promote the interests of the British people and our IP-rich businesses” and adds that “the UK+ regime reflects the many different parts of the UK’s modern, innovative economy. It ensures that our world-leading inventors and creators can invest their time and energy in developing new products and technologies knowing that our parallel importation laws will help to support them make a living from their IP assets. These laws will also facilitate competition in the marketplace. And they will enable the British public to have fair access to IP-protected goods.”
What this means for you
The government’s decision to maintain the UK+ regime provides businesses with certainty that they can continue to operate under the UK’s current parallel importation rules. Whilst the regime favours IP rights holders in the EEA over the UK, it is currently considered to be “working well”.
If you have any questions or would like any further information, please contact your usual Forresters attorney.
