Corporate report

Corporate plan 2021/2022

Published 20 May 2021

Ministerial foreword

Amanda Solloway, Minister of IP

Unleashing innovation and creativity will be at the heart of the post-pandemic recovery and support British businesses to build back better. The Government’s Research and Development Roadmap sets clear objectives for increasing investment in research and becoming world-class at securing economic and social benefits; inspiring creators, entrepreneurs and start-ups; increasing the flow of capital into firms that are committed to research and development; attracting and retaining talented, diverse teams; making long term commitments to people, places and institutions and collaborating nationally and internationally to deliver world-leading innovation and creativity that achieves world-beating results.

Britain has always been a world-leader for Intellectual Property (IP), laying the foundations for fair, accessible rights for everyone in 1852. The Patents Law Amendment Act brought the process of granting patents into a single office serving the whole of the United Kingdom. The application process and fees were simplified to improve the accessibility of the system to inventors. By 1876, the public could register designs and trademarks and the Office is now also responsible for copyright regulation. These developments engaged creators and inventors in making the most of their rights, wherever they lived and whatever their social status, in an IP system which was inspirational and fair. As human creativity is a defining feature of becoming a ‘science superpower’, innovation, invention and intellectual property ownership are essential components of a creative process with rights, rewards and responsibilities.

Innovation and creativity are central to our levelling up agenda. The benefits of IP are not only for businesses’ bottom lines; there is investment in talented workers, regional clusters, the people and communities who benefit from new ideas, products and entertainment, and the nation’s standing on the world stage. The profits and responsibilities of IP ownership should not be perceived as the entitlement of an elite group, they should be connected to a diverse, inventive cohort spread throughout the country from start-ups to technology leaders. Similarly, responsibility for protecting the integrity of intellectual property should be pushed outwards so that individual consumers and tradespeople become guardians of the markets they value, need and enjoy.

Last year, communities and economies across the world faced unprecedented disruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At a time of such devastation, we saw the best in British ingenuity. From our leading research institutions to schools and colleges, and from distilleries to Formula One teams, British innovators developed and manufactured life-saving sanitisers, vaccinations and ventilators. These technologies now offer a route out of the current pandemic. By enabling collaboration and incentivising investment, IP will play an important part in beating Covid-19 once and for all. We are already reaping the benefits of the IP framework through its impact in mobilising research and development of game-changing vaccines at record speed. Funding by the UK Government has been vital in the rapid development, approval and deployment of vaccines and licensing of IP will be critical in reaching global communities. We can also credit this success to the decades of investment in science and innovation and sharing of knowledge underpinned by the IP system.

IP underpins economic growth by incentivising investment, safe-guarding assets and enabling the sharing of know-how in technologies like life sciences and artificial intelligence. IP helps enable Britain to forge an unbeatable competitive advantage, accelerating the transition to Net Zero energy, beating the pandemic, driving up innovation and creativity to build back better.

CEO foreword

Tim Moss, Chief Executive of Intellectual Property Office

IP touches everything that makes modern life more enjoyable, easier, safer, and more prosperous. It gives researchers, inventors, creators and businesses the confidence to invest their time, energy and money in doing something new.

This confidence is essential as we aim to build back better. It will unleash innovation which drives economic growth. The UK has best in class scientists, engineers, artists, entrepreneurs and creators, and our purpose is to help them provide jobs and improve lives by making the most of research and investment. We face a once in a generation opportunity to help businesses to recover from the economic shock of Covid-19. Intellectual property is essential to building a better future: IP will enable our creative and technological industries to confidently deliver the economic growth we need.

The Intellectual Property Office’s ambition is to be the best IP office in the world, by providing excellent IP services, a legislative and policy framework that is world leading and a brilliant place to work. We are transforming our ways of working, our services and the way we engage customers. Thanks to the amazing resilience, creative thinking and team-work of our staff, the IPO has stayed open for business throughout the pandemic and switched to digital delivery for many services. The agility and adaptability, willingness to try new ways of working and support and collaboration our people have shown will stand us in good stead as we move forward. This year, we expect rights applications to increase by around 25%. To respond to this, we will grow our work force, and importantly build our culture to match our bold ambitions. We will invest in our service delivery to ensure we can uphold excellent customer satisfaction for the long term.

The IPO’s key priorities of transformation, core services, increasing our external impact and future proofing the IP framework and our ‘One IPO’ approach will help the UK to become the most innovative country in the world. Our rights-granting services will meet customer needs, so we will eliminate the patents backlog and respond to unprecedented demand for trade marks and designs. Our people are working in new ways, using new tools and techniques and are supported in their work and their lives around work to be kind to each other and to themselves. We will take advantage of every opportunity to make these things more than the sum of the parts.

Our estates strategy and hybrid working approach will ensure we make the most efficient use of our buildings and resources to meet government green targets and achieve Net Zero. We believe that working together as ‘One IPO’ will make us the best IP office in the world. We have new opportunities, as an independent nation, to trade and co-operate with other countries and enable creators and innovators to build back better. The pandemic continues to affect everything we do, but I am confident that the IPO will meet the challenges we face. Our people have shown incredible agility and resilience through 2020 and providing a supportive environment for their health and wellbeing continues as our priority. Their commitment, hard work and ingenuity have put us in a strong position to deliver our goals for 2021/22 and together we will achieve them.

Delivering services that elevate the credibility of British creativity and inventiveness across the globe, drive innovation and deliver value for money during a period of economic turbulence is a challenge the IPO was designed for. Everything we do inspires confidence in innovation and creative industries in Britain and takes it to the world. This plan sets out how we will chart the journey and make that happen.

IPO’s 2021/22 priorities

Our strategy to be the best IP office is about achieving the three goals of:

• delivering excellent IP services
• creating a world leading IP environment, and
• making the IPO a brilliant place to work

To deliver excellent IP services our priorities are to:

• transform our services and deliver modern, efficient customer focussed services, and
• deliver our core services by providing high quality IP rights services; Eliminating the historic patents backlog, as well as the trade mark and designs backlogs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and post-EU additional workloads by the end of the business year

To create a world leading IP environment our priority is:

• increasing our external impact and future proofing the IP framework by working across government and with stakeholders to ensure that IP plays a key role in unleashing innovation. We will focus on maximising how IP is understood, accessed and utilised and making sure the domestic IP framework gives the UK the competitive edge; making sure IP frameworks in target international markets are fit-for-purpose and enable UK businesses to grow.

To make the IPO a brilliant place to work our priority is:

• embedding our ‘One IPO’ culture supporting all our people to contribute their best through our ‘One IPO’ approach, specifically this year by focussing on our future organisational needs including leadership development, hybrid working (mix of remote and office-based) and organisation design

Our approach

In everything we do we will:

• focus on customers
• strive for efficiency
• support our people

To note: As this plan is developed, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to disrupt societies, economies and lives. Our priorities and principles are unchanged but as the pandemic and the world’s response evolves this may impact what we are able to deliver during 2021-22. We will review our priorities as the impact of the virus, and vaccination, become clearer and if necessary, we will adapt the scope to deliver the most important priorities. We have a robust quarterly reforecasting and dynamic business planning process in place which gives us the ability to adapt our finance and resource models to respond to emerging trends, and we will ensure that we focus our efforts and resources where they will have the most significant impact on tackling the pandemic and building back better.

Ministerial targets

These are the targets that are agreed with our Minister and reflect our key priorities for the year. There is a customer target that is linked to our focus on core services, one linked to important changes required to the IP system, plus an efficiency target that demonstrates our commitment to improving the way we provide our services each year.

Our more detailed targets and measures are explained throughout the plan.

• customer: average overall customer satisfaction with the IPO of 85% or more in Q4 2021-22
• future proofing the IP framework: consult on changes to patent and copyright law to meet the future challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence, and present recommendations to ministers by Q4
• efficiency: delivering our services efficiently through continuously improving our systems, processes and way of working to make things better for our customers and our people. Our target is to achieve efficiencies worth at least 3.5% of our core operating costs

2020/21 highlights

The Covid-19 pandemic brought with it for all of us huge personal and professional challenges, so the highlights set out in this section are even more extraordinary and speak to the dedication, commitment and professionalism of our amazing people.

Delivering excellent IP services

• despite extraordinary circumstances, we successfully maintained our average customer satisfaction target at 85%
• we achieved efficiencies worth more than 5% of our core operating costs
• we exceeded our target reduction for our patent backlog achieving a 41% decrease to date
• we successfully delivered a migration of EU trade marks and designs to the UK registers and made the legislative changes that brought those rights into effect. We also delivered the operational and legislative changes that adapted our address for service regime that came into effect on 1 January 2021 and launched the new trade mark classification search tool
• we processed a record level of workload across the organisation, supporting and delivering quality services to our customers
• on Tribunals, we continued to meet our target of sending out hearing reports on time, achieving over 99%.
• we completed the mobilisation period of the transformation programme; the detailed preparatory work undertaken during this period established the foundations to deliver Transformation
• the enterprise-wide Renewals service successfully passed its assessment to move to public beta and is now being used for 99.5% of all IP renewal transactions. The renewals project team won the Bronze award for the Civil Service Operational Delivery Profession in the transformation category for this workstream
• we successfully launched the AI-powered trade marks pre-application tool into public Beta, this enables applicants to make better informed application by using the tool before submitting their applications

Creating a world leading IP environment

• we delivered a smooth exit from the EU for IP rightsholders and agreed the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement under challenging circumstances
• we successfully delivered IP chapters in trade agreements that the UK has agreed - deals that cover 63% of the UK’s bilateral trade
• we completed a call for views on AI to develop our understanding of how AI impacts the IP framework and published a government response, enabling us to provide the clarity our customers need to confidently invest in AI
• we transformed our IP master class, IP for Research education programme and webinar programmes from face to face to online
• we developed a framework for IP education that defines the IP knowledge, skills and attitudes needed by young people
• we engaged with more than 70,000 businesses on IP and of those that we surveyed an average of 75% of them felt able to make an informed decision about managing their IP
• the IPO intelligence hub has continued to target the cash flows of IP criminals, with over £2.3m in proceeds from IP crime already seized, and approximately the same amount again in the pipeline
• the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), continued its work with Nominet, with over 115,623 websites now suspended for selling counterfeit products since disruption began
• the UK has further developed the use of its world leading website blocking injunctions as a tool for tackling copyright infringement, with coverage of cyberlocker and stream ripping sites now established through recent judgments
• we have been influential in delivering international changes in the international enforcement space, providing more certainty and security for UK customers when they trade abroad with particular success in Brazil and the Philippines

Making the IPO a brilliant place to work

• we mobilised quickly and effectively in response to Covid-19, ensuring that >95% of our people could work effectively remotely within days and that those who did need to come into the workplace felt safe and confident to do so
• our overall engagement score in our People Survey 2020 reached an all-time high of 73%, an increase of 5% from last year, with us remaining a Civil Service High Performer for engagement. We successfully retained a top 3 slot for Learning and Development
• we provided significant support in the transition to remote working including home office equipment, upgrading Surface Pro™ devices, additional support for those with home schooling and caring responsibilities
• we introduced a new employee assistance programme to support the mental health and wellbeing of our people to sit alongside our staff counselling service and other sources of support for mental health and wellbeing
• for the third time in four years, we were named as a Top 10 Employer for Working Families. This acknowledges us as one of the best employers in the UK for a flexible, family-friendly inclusive environment
• the STEM Returner Scheme saw 7 people successfully start a structured 12-week placement to close their career gap. This is in addition to progressing other parts of the Gender Pay Gap Action Plan including a new mentoring programme and a refreshed approach to targeting new talent, underpinned by a refreshed recruitment policy
• we were awarded the carer confident benchmark of ‘level 2 accomplished’ from Carers UK
• following a review of our facilities, polices and support for our workplace cycling, we have been awarded gold status as a UK Cycle friendly employer
• we were recertified to silver level in the Public Health Wales Corporate Health Standard which recognises a clear commitment of the Office to employee health and wellbeing

2021/22 activities

We consistently have one of the best IP systems in the world and we want to be the best IP office. That means delivering excellent IP services, creating a world leading IP environment and making the IPO a brilliant place to work.

The previous year saw significant challenges as we responded to Covid-19. However, amid significant and fast-paced change we also saw the best of IPO in action as colleagues worked together, beyond typical function, professions or locations to ensure those who needed help and support could do so. This demonstrates the very best of our ‘One IPO’ spirit providing an even stronger platform to build on as we look to our priorities across 2021/22 in pursuit of becoming the best IP office.

Transformation

Our innovation will support Britain’s innovation. Transforming the way we provide our services to customers is essential to help the UK to become the most innovative and creative country in the world. We want to ensure the services we provide support all our customers in an increasingly digital environment and we will put them at the heart of this work. Our goal is to provide fast, flexible, high quality services which will give our customers a seamless experience across different IP rights. We want to make it much easier for our customers to interact with us in applying for and managing their IP rights and ensure that we compare with the best services provided by other IP offices and private sector organisations. We will streamline and modernise our processes and structures to make this happen and provide our people with the tools and skills to deliver efficiently, effectively and productively for our customers.

Over the last year, we completed a mobilisation phase, which was about making sure we were ready for our five-year Transformation change programme. We agreed an investment case that sets out the most ambitious improvement we have ever undertaken allowing us to move into the next phase of the programme – building the ‘One IPO foundation’ where we start to bring our three IP rights – patents, trade marks and designs – onto a common IP system, where we and our customers will be able to manage and access all their IP rights in one place. This transformation will not just modernise and recreate our current processes, systems and services, it will completely transform what we do, the way we do it and the value we add as an organisation to Britain’s economy. We will be more effective, not just more efficient.

In 2021/22 we will begin the delivery phase, working with key partners to design and build new services. We will make the following progress:

• deploy the enterprise-wide Renewals service into public Beta;
• work closely with our customers, applicants and future rights-holders to understand what they need from our new digital services, and test and refine our initial thinking
• develop prototypes of our new User Account Service and develop our Manage IP services in an alpha phase, which will enable customers to access their patent rights online and easily manage their information
• complete testing of early ideas and solutions for our new Secure IP and Challenge IP services. These will provide customers with the ability to apply for rights and use the tribunal function to ensure rights are fair and valid. We will be in a position to start developing prototypes in 2022
• complete work to understand customer requirements for our Research IP services to access the data we hold on our Registers and in our Journals. As well as our direct customers we will ensure the needs of applicants and future rights-holders are understood and met. We will have early ideas to test for how the new system will work by the end of the year
• engage and communicate with our people every step of the way to ensure they are able to be part of the change and help shape the benefits Transformation will bring
• build the business change team and business change network to embed our business change framework. This will ensure we know the expected impact of Transformation across all business areas and mean that we support, prepare and equip our people with the skills and capabilities needed for a new service delivery approach

Measures

• GDS Assessments passed
• develop prototypes and complete alpha phases by the end of the year
• complete testing of Manage IP, Secure IP and Challenge IP
• complete customer research including applicants, representatives and rights-holders

Transformation will draw heavily on expertise and participation from people across the business as well as external expertise to enhance IPO capability whilst ensuring we have the enduring capability to maintain and improve our services. The success of other key activities and priorities will rely on balancing the capacity of our people with demand for Transformation.

Delivering excellent IP services

The IPO compares favourably and is recognised internationally for the timeliness of our services. 2021 will be a year unlike any other however, with significant uncertainty over demand, particularly as we have already received unprecedented volumes of trade mark and designs applications after leaving the EU’s trade mark and design systems. Our registered rights applications are expected to increase by up to 25% next year. This will in turn create challenges in ensuring we continue to meet our aims for the timely delivery of our core services, intensified by the changes in domestic demand for our services during the pandemic and our commitment to eliminating historic backlogs in our patent services.

We have already invested in additional people and resources to meet this demand and plan to invest even further in 2021, through additional recruitment and training our examination teams to focus on giving customers what they need within the right timescales. We will recruit patent examiners to maintain capacity and enable us to meet demand in technology hotspots. Last year we recruited 110 new trade mark and design examiners, doubling our headcount. This year we will recruit over 50 more trade mark and design examiners on fixed term contracts, to increase our capacity whilst retaining flexibility until our demand stabilises. Building our capability to deliver our core services is a key part of achieving our Ministerial Target of 85% customer satisfaction.

As a priority, the IPO will offer financial support to SMEs and innovative businesses to recover from Covid-19. The aim is to foster growth and help the UK economy build back better and ensure UK industry receives the support it needs. The financial scheme will be targeted to UK regions and will be focussed on supporting both recovering and growing SMEs.

Our 2021/22 plan paves the way for the IPO to enable and accelerate innovation by delivering excellent services and the best outcomes for our customers. In addition to the scheme outlined above, we will continue to develop our Customer Strategy, review and improve our website guidance and our approach to tribunals, and establish a data centre of excellence.

Timely, reliable and quality services

Key activities

• we have set our sights on customer satisfaction of 85% or more because we put customers at the heart of everything we do. This means that everything we do should ultimately deliver excellent IP services
  • we will publish our Customer Service Standards and our monthly achievement against those standards, using management information from across the business
  • we will review our website guidance and led by customer feedback we will improve our online guidance and content ensuring our customers find it easier to access and understand
  • customer relationships are key to understanding business, inventor and creator needs. We will review our customer relationship approach to ensure it drives continuous improvement of our services and develop a new relationship management framework that ensures our customers drive transformation of our services
• we will drive a “close the loop” culture on customer feedback using our newly developed framework and customer experience dashboard to ensure we resolve issues with our services identified by customers and continuously improve customer experience of our services

• we will deepen our understanding of our customers, focussing this year on researching and developing our understanding of the needs of existing and potential rights owners. We will focus on our newly expanding EU customer base, through externally-commissioned research, building and using high quality management and business information

• we will eliminate the patent backlog to reduce pendency times and ensure no applications are awaiting examination for more than 42 months. This will give customers and the public increased certainty and accelerate the realisation of the benefits of protection. To do this we will continue to recruit to maintain the right skills and expertise and we will sub-contract more searches to the EPO to allow us to focus on examinations. Our management information will ensure we are able to respond to innovation trends and focus technical skills on in-demand sectors
• the trade mark backlog has risen since leaving the EU and due to the consequences of the pandemic. We will reduce the backlog of trade marks and designs awaiting examination to within ten days. To achieve this, we will invest heavily in recruiting 50 new trade mark and design examiners to increase capacity, with appointments on a fixed term basis with the flexibility to appoint permanently if required. To ensure the successful onboarding of the new examiners, we will train them and have the technical and personal leadership networks in place to help them get up to speed quickly and effectively
• we will implement the agreed Quality and Benchmarking Review recommendations working closely with the Customer Experience Unit for insight and to ensure our services are excellent. We will undertake a Tribunal Review with an independent Lead to assess the separation of responsibilities from the rights granting operation, the structural/procedural framework and the transformative opportunities for our customers. We will implement the agreed recommendations to ensure the impartial, timely and quality delivery of our tribunal services

Measures

• our Ministerial target is customer satisfaction of 85% in Q4; this reflects our key priority to deliver excellent customer service
• as well as reducing the patent examination backlog, patent searches will be delivered within 6 months and timescales for re-examination of amendments will reduce towards two months or less if appropriate
• the current backlog of patent examinations over 42 months from priority date will be eliminated, in the absence of severe disruptions to service or unexpected increases in demand
• the backlog of trade mark and designs cases will be cleared by Q3 and the first report on trade mark and design examinations will be issued within ten days by November 2021
• the agreed Quality, Benchmarking and Tribunal Review recommendations will have a clear implementation plan and timeline to achieve. Our Tribunal Services will be fit for purpose and prepared for increases of demand as we increase examination

Data: improving services and sharing knowledge

Key activities

• delivering transformation will rely on our having access to first class data about our customers, their rights and our services. In order to assure successful data governance, quality and migration, we will appoint a Chief Data Officer and create a Data Centre of Excellence. This will include the tools, roles and expertise to ensure we use technologies like AI and best practice knowledge and information management and retention policies to ensure our data is clear, accessible and up to date

Measures

• an accessible data tool to give the organisation what it needs will be identified and acquired in Q3

End to end digital

In addition to Transformation:

Key activities

• we will support and maintain existing systems to ensure our infrastructure and systems are safe, efficient, compliant, reliable and accessible to staff and customers working from anywhere
• we will support new ways of working for customers and staff including remote and on-site

Measures

• digital services will meet 99.5% availability
• internal systems will meet 99.0% availability

World leading IP environment

An effective IP system is fundamental to the Government’s ambition for the UK to be a ‘science superpower’ and the best place in the world for scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs to innovate. In order to ensure that IP incentivises innovation and plays its vital role in the post-pandemic recovery as the UK builds back better, our aspiration is to ensure that the domestic IP framework gives the UK the competitive edge; making sure IP frameworks in target international markets are fit-for-purpose and enable UK businesses to grow; and ensure the IP system keeps pace with the innovation that drives our economy.

We will work across government and with stakeholders to ensure that IP plays a key role in unleashing innovation and delivering the outputs from the Government’s R&D roadmap. This will include focusing on how we can increase how IP is understood, accessed and utilised.

The Government has committed to “levelling up all areas of the UK” and our work will continue to support this. This year we will move from a “places blind” to a “places focus” approach in respect of activities and services. We will ensure that decisions made within the organisation take greater account of places as a factor and the impact of those decisions on levelling up is considered.

To maximise the role IP can play it needs to be widely understood. Young people should leave education knowing about IP; researchers and universities should understand how to use IP in collaboration and commercialisation; civil and crown servants should recognise the benefits of IP in their policy making; and businesses should be able to take informed decisions about their IP assets.

We need to ensure the IP framework is fit for the future by building in agility so that it is responsive to the changing needs of innovators, creators, businesses and consumers. We will prepare a Futures Strategy to set out our approach to future challenges and technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and take forward the actions from the AI call for views. We will also embed horizon scanning into our policy, operational and corporate work and take an agile approach to regulation, including for legislation required for our transformation programme.

The IP environment goes beyond just the IP system and associated legal frameworks. Indeed, in order to unleash innovation, IP’s real impact lies in recognising it as an asset. For example, this might be to exclude others from the market (for a limited period), generate revenue, raise finance, access or share new technologies, or create consumer loyalty. It is only when recognised and treated as an asset that the value of IP can truly be unlocked for societal and economic benefit.

The UK has consistently been credited with having one of the best IP enforcement regimes in the world, and we want to ensure that it remains at the forefront of understanding the challenges and advances of the IP Framework and ensure that routes to enforcement are accessible to all and effectively targeted to have the most impact.

Developing the legislative and policy framework

Key activities

• in response to the AI Call for Views, we will consult on changes to patent and copyright law. We will present recommendations to Ministers by Q4
• a government consultation and subsequent analysis on the options for the UK’s permanent exhaustion of IP rights regime will be completed, with advice provided to Ministers on the future approach
• we will work with government colleagues to ensure IP is considered and appropriately addressed in developing cross-Whitehall Strategies focusing on innovation and growth
• we will incorporate the findings of the IP in Health Working Group and ensure that any outcomes, such as guidance, principles or a toolkit can be used by all government departments. This will help the IP framework support the Government when procuring or publicly funding research, to meet the needs of future international public health priorities, including future pandemics
• we will develop and deliver an IPO Places Strategy to play our part in levelling up the UK. This will include new ways of working; the positioning of regional posts such as IP Policy Advisors; and engaging with key influencers and policy makers across the UK and with other government departments to ensure consistency and support wider initiatives such as Levelling Up all areas of the UK, Local Economic Recovery and innovation support
• mandates for trade agreements will be agreed with other government departments to ensure IP supports British business and consumers. We will work with the Department for International Trade in particular, to ensure that trade negotiations are consistent with the UK’s interests and the Government’s policies and priorities
• we will review our International Strategy In order to maximise trade and collaboration as an independent nation, for example by cementing relationships with other national and international IPOs and deploying attachés where they can deliver value for British business. Our objective in these relationships is to secure mutual benefit and to enhance IP enforcement measures
• we will work closely across government, including with DCMS and BEIS, to ensure that the copyright framework remains balanced and fit for purpose, and encourages creativity, innovation, and fair outcomes for all its users. This will include taking forward the Beijing Treaty consultation, reviews of domestic and international legislation and focussing on the impacts of content streaming on creators and performers

Measures

• AI legislative consultation published in Q3 and we will be ready to deliver any new legislation in Q1 2022
• consultation and analysis on exhaustion of IP rights will be completed in Q2
• IPO Places Strategy agreed Q2 and implementation begun by Q4
• International Strategy revised and agreed in Q1

Increasing IP’s impact through awareness and education

Key activities

• we will develop a framework detailing how IP links to stages of the business lifecycle. We will aim to ensure the right information, guidance and support is available at the right time so that the stages of their business and IP journey run seamlessly together. Pre-start businesses will begin with firm IP foundations; start-ups will develop best practice skills around integrated business and IP management; and so that they can scale, those businesses will then be able to take effective leadership decisions around strategic use of their IP assets
• our IP training will be developed to meet the needs of government while creating a network of IP Experts across the Civil Service, to improve cross-government IP capability
• we want to ensure young people learn about IP. To do this we will work with partners to refine the IP Education Framework, setting out the knowledge, skills and attitudes young people need to develop, and improve our support for teachers and educators
• we also want to build IP capability in higher education by extending our education programme to reach more researchers, so they understand the role of IP in research collaboration and commercialisation
• we will develop an IP in Finance strategy, representing IP as an asset and supporting wider government strategies. This work will include benchmarking other countries approaches

Measures

• the international business support service will use evidence to target the most effective interventions by the end of Q1
• a cross-government IP training package and a network of IP Experts will be in place by the end of Q3
• the IP Education Framework will be reviewed by Q3 and the new framework launched by the end of Q4
• our researcher education programme will be reviewed by the end of Q2 and during Q3-4 the new programme for Academic Year 2021/22 will be designed and delivered

Reducing IP crime and infringement

Key activities

• we will publish a five year Enforcement Strategy covering 5 years to 2026. The plan will focus on leadership, partnership and education through new and existing collaborations. It will mean that we can positively and confidently improve enforcement of rights and make IP crime socially unacceptable
• coordination of the enforcement landscape is the most effective means for the IPO to encourage enforcement partners to take action on IP crime. We will work to ensure the proper structures are in place through the IP Crime Group, national coordinating forums and focussed delivery groups where needed, as well as ensuring there is a coherent and accepted narrative about the importance of tackling infringement
• intelligence is key to taking effective action on infringement and sharing relevant data with partners such as the Police National Database will amplify our impact. We will improve the way we share our data and ensure we have the remit and capability to hit home harder with enforcement
• continue funding the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU)

Measures

• in Q1 this year we will develop a delivery plan for implementation of the Enforcement Strategy, beginning later this year
• we will deliver an independent review into the role of the IP Crime Group and supporting structures in conjunction with retired senior police officer Peter Clarke (CVO, OBE, QPM) in Q1
• this year we will run a campaign targeting Beauty and Healthcare which is designed to change behaviours and reduce IP infringement. We will measure the impact by comparing surveyed attitudes to pre-existing data
• we will complete the delivery of a self-regulatory framework for self-storage operators, covering the whole of the UK by the end of Q4
• by the end of Q3 we will have competed a feasibility study into a single reporting point for IP crime

Making the IPO a brilliant place to work

We pride ourselves on delivering excellent services to our customers and as the demand for our IP services grows, we need to grow as an organisation. We will unlock the potential of our people by investing in their skills and capability, and ensure we have the capacity to deliver our core services, our ambitious transformation roadmap and to improve the IP environment. We will make the most of this investment by designing our organisation and governance to be agile and efficient; by strengthening our change, demand and prioritisation capability; and by using relevant, reliable information and analysis to improve planning and forecasting. We will develop a People Plan and implement a Management Information and Business Information (MI/BI) strategy to ensure the right data and analysis are at the heart of our decision making.

We will strengthen our continuous improvement mindset to deliver benefits and savings for our customers. Here, we use “customer” to refer to each other too, because we also commit to delivering excellent services in our individual and team interactions. Our accommodation, our IT and our behaviours must meet these high standards. Being the best IP office will require making sure we have the fundamentals in place; a diverse and inclusive workforce of people who share our values and behaviours and are equipped with the right tools, environment and knowledge.

We will explore and design our future way of working, learning from recent experiences of remote working and increasing workloads. We have a strong track record of promoting new ways of working, although planned growth will mean we have to adapt to an environment where we can’t all be in the same place at once. We will make the most of the opportunities that hybrid working enables, including remote-working, flexible hours and remote collaboration and community. We will focus on our Estates Strategy to continue to use our accommodation as effectively and efficiently as possible with our people and our customers in mind.

‘One IPO’ means all our people working and changing together in the best way to deliver for our customers, now and in the future. This year, it will mean enhancing our skills and thinking differently about space and the tools we use to maximise the experience of our people and customers’ experience in a rapidly changing digital world. Our priority is to focus on our culture and the organisational design to deliver it, to make the IPO the best we can be.

Solid foundations

Key activities

• in 2021 we will review our organisational design supported by external experts, to ensure that our workforce, capabilities and structures are fit for the future
• a People Plan which sets out our vision and an approach to transition will be drafted by December. This will take account of both transformation and broader organisational change
• in order to meet our ambitious resourcing plans, both in terms of numbers and better diversity outcomes, we will continuously review and improve our recruitment approaches to ensure they are efficient and effective.
• with significant BAU and change activity in progress we will take action in Q1 to enhance our capability in demand and prioritisation management

Measures

• future Organisational Design agreed in Q3
• initial People and Transition Plan prepared by Q3
• effectiveness of recruitment activity will be tracked and reported quarterly
• proposals around demand and prioritisation will be agreed and implemented in Q1

Culture: ‘One IPO’

Key activities

• our ‘One IPO’ ambitions will be realised and we will measure our progress through our culture matrix. A ‘One IPO’ culture will drive our best performance and successful delivery of our corporate plan priorities. The culture matrix is framed around people having clarity, confidence and capability in a range of contexts and activity, which we will measure using our MI/BI tools. It will capture the effectiveness of our goals, our roles and our customer focus, for example in driving change and improving diversity and inclusion outcomes. The culture matrix will be reported monthly, enabling deep dives for assurance and challenge
• we will develop the capability of our leaders to deliver our future ambition and to role model a ‘One IPO’ culture, and the IPO Board will continue their own focussed development. We will support new managers and all our people by focussing on the skills and confidence to have the best conversations. Through the Senior Leaders’ Group and the Leading Managers’ Group we will offer mutual support, challenge and learning

Measures

• we will measure our ‘One IPO’ Culture as we progress and transform using a culture matrix score covering clarity, confidence and capability across the business. The score will be reviewed monthly and any areas for action identified and implemented
• in Q1 we will develop a single Inclusion Plan, encompassing and strengthening our commitments across all our diversity priorities (including gender pay gap; better recruitment outcomes; succession planning and social mobility). These will be reported and tracked on a quarterly basis
• board development will be delivered in Q2 and SLG development in Q3. New manager training and ‘Best Conversations’ interventions will start by Q3 and continue. Feedback at the end of the year will confirm these programmes have been relevant and effective, with outcomes measured through the relevant People Survey responses

Healthy people, healthy environment

Key activities

• we are committed to improving the mental and physical wellbeing of our people and ensuring work is a positive influence. We will continue to provide access to counselling and mental health resources; flexibility to fit work around other commitments and will follow through on the importance of communicating with and helping the networks and communities that we all belong to. We will work with Government, the Professions and external partners to get expert advice and check we’re doing everything we can. In response to the ongoing pandemic we will develop and implement a Wellbeing Action Plan to ensure we can provide ongoing support and additional actions for future ways of working
• following the successful move of many roles to remote working, we will review the use of our office space to ensure it is fit for future ways of working. We will look at our culture, space and connectivity to make the most of a common location and shared environment, in tandem with enabling those who can and who want to, to work from home productively. This hybrid working model will be developed through the year by consulting and piloting options based on needs and opportunities. Our future approach will support our ambitions around place, levelling up and inclusion and diversity outcomes. We will onboard the estate to the Government Property Agency for Q1 and ensure that IT and Facilities assets are managed jointly thereafter
• we will work through the new Greening government commitments and will develop an action plan to deliver the Government’s Net Zero Strategy

Measures

• the Wellbeing Action Plan, including a specific focus on managers, will be delivered throughout the year and we will review the results of the MIND index in Q3 and update the Action Plan as a result
• we will evaluate hybrid working pilots and trials in Q1 and Q2 with a view to developing a revised Estates Strategy during Q3
• we will develop a Net Zero action plan in line with the Government Greening Targets by Q3

Resources 2021/2022

Our budget reflects the continued growth in demand for our services, increased capacity to deal with this and investment in transforming our services.

Although new patent application numbers are falling slightly, renewals are increasing as both the IPO and the EPO are tackling backlogs. The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in large numbers of new products and related trade marks and designs being registered. Following the UK’s departure from the EU we are receiving additional income from trade mark and design applications and renewals that now come direct to the UK rather than to the EUIPO. Our operating costs will increase as we create the required capacity to manage these.

These increases are difficult to accurately predict, given the ongoing Covid-19 impacts and that the EU transition period has only recently ended. Our proposed increases in staff and other capacity will be subject to this growth materialising, with temporary increases wherever possible to allow us to manage fluctuations in these forecasts.

Our operating costs will be covered by our trading income, whilst our investment will be funded from our reserves. As a Trading Fund our income is from fees for our services rather than government funding.

£’000	2020/21 Q3 forecast	2021/22 budget
Income
Patents	75,312	78,835
Trade Marks	40,680	68,796
Designs	838	1,307
Other	1,607	463
Total	118,438	149,401
Expenditure
Pay	(79,055)	(92,977)
Non-pay	(27,544)	(38,604)
Depreciation	(2,656)	(3,076)
Dividend	(3,357)	(3,357)
Other	16	1
Total	(112,596)	(138,013)
Operating Surplus	5,841	11,888
Investment
Transformation Revenue	(6,173)	(1,000)
Transformation Capital	(7,668)	(30,912)
Other Revenue	(5,637)	(3,546)
Other Capital	(3,084)	(1,023)
Total	(22,562)	(36,481)