Corporate report

Intellectual Property Office Corporate Priorities 2023 to 2024 (HTML)

Published 25 April 2023

Ministerial Foreword

Innovation is the catalyst for a growing, sustainable economy. Now, more than ever, delivering the government’s bold plan to grow the UK economy and make it the most innovative and creative economy in the world is vital. Harnessing this innovation and creativity will help us enhance productivity, stimulate stronger growth, create high-paid jobs of the future, protect our security, radically improve people’s lives and make bold discoveries towards tackling the global challenges of today and the future. Intellectual property (IP) is the key to unlocking this. IP rights provide incentives for our innovative businesses, our world-renowned scientists and cutting-edge creators to innovate and create, ensuring they are rewarded for their efforts, and wider society can benefit from their work.

And the UK is uniquely placed to build on this. It is celebrated for its leadership in research and its excellent scientific and academic institutions. Innovative businesses continue to start and grow in all areas of the UK. Its creative industries have a global reputation, particularly in music, cinema, literature and computer games. Its world-class IP system supports this success, and we must ensure it continues to do so, supporting these sectors and others, to build on the UK’s innovative nature and grow its businesses and its economy.

The government is committed to supporting innovative and creative businesses across the UK. Our manifesto sets out our aim for the UK to be the best place in the world for inventors, creators and innovators to turn their ideas into reality and find success. Our Innovation Strategy committed to increasing innovation and defined the pillars through which we will achieve our vision: For the UK to be a global hub for innovation. Fuelling the businesses that want to innovate, attracting innovation talent, supporting our institutions and stimulating innovation to tackle today’s major challenges are still the ways we will lead and create the future. Indeed, this year the Prime Minister reaffirmed the government’s resolve to support innovation in the UK by creating a new department dedicated to Science, Innovation and Technology. This department will be the driving force behind this commitment, creating further opportunity to deliver on some of the biggest issues facing the UK and the world. In March, the Prime Minister and Technology Secretary launched the government’s plan to cement the UK’s established position as a science and technology superpower by 2030. The government has committed more than £370 million to deliver this Framework, boosting investment in innovation, attracting world-renowned talent to the UK and making the most of ground-breaking technologies. In bringing together the five technologies of tomorrow – Quantum, AI, Engineering Biology, Semiconductors, Future Telecoms, alongside Life Sciences, Space, Green Technologies and Intellectual Property – the government will foster the right conditions for innovation and research. This will enable our economy to grow, our people to access high-paid jobs and everyone’s lives to improve. As Minister for Intellectual Property, I know how important IP is to achieve this.

And so, we must ensure we provide the right frameworks to stimulate this creative and innovative economy. Intellectual property is at the heart of achieving this. IP rights are the incentive for us all to innovate and create; they give individuals and businesses the confidence to develop something new, knowing they can reap the benefits of their work. Our IP framework will unlock our innovative future.

CEO Foreword

IP underpins the innovation that is so important to the UK’s businesses and economy, more so now than ever. IP rights provide the security that businesses, creators and innovators need to allow them to grow, invest in the future and foster further innovative endeavours.

That is why the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) continues to deliver and improve its services so that they are easy to use, operate to class-leading standards and can change to meet future needs.

We continue to develop policies, legislation, information and our enforcement framework so that our customers are able to access, use and protect their IP effectively.

To support our people in delivering these aims, we continue to create an environment where they have the skills, resources and capability to deliver, feel valued for their work and have the confidence to do what is right for our customers and each other.

We made great progress last year against our key deliverables. We exceeded our customer satisfaction targets whilst embarking on phase one of our One IPO Transformation Programme which will improve our service for customers even further. We continued to make improvements to our domestic IP frameworks, seeking views and building futures-thinking into our approaches. We delivered our ambitious financial support schemes for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), providing competitive grant funding to innovative businesses across the UK to help them better manage and use their IP. We worked internationally to improve the global IP system, building on our world-leading reputation and expanding our IP attaché network to provide further support for UK businesses abroad. We delivered the first year of our IP Counter-Infringement Strategy, embedding new structures and building relationships that are already bringing great success in tackling IP infringement. We worked creatively to improve our talent pipeline and made sure our people continue to feel valued.

We have been able to deliver all this and more whilst maintaining customer satisfaction and delivering wider government priorities under our three-pillar framework:

• delivering Excellent IP services
• creating a World Leading IP Environment
• making the IPO a Brilliant Place to Work

These three pillars are at the core of what we do as an organisation. They allow us to focus our efforts and work towards our vision of being the best at what we do as a whole organisation. We are committed to continuing to work under this framework in 2023/24.

This year we will focus our attention and resources on our highest priority areas: Targeting our efforts to ensure we continue to build our resilience as an office and an IP system. This approach will enable us to continue to achieve our core strategic objectives in line with our Strategy and beyond, whilst also allowing us to be responsive to wider government aims and the global landscape we operate in.

Our Corporate Priorities for 2023/24

Our three-pillar framework paves the way for us to achieve our priorities now and in the future.

Under Delivering Excellent IP services our ambition is to be completely customer-focused in delivering services that are easy to use, operate to world class leading standards and change to meet future needs.

Our World Leading IP Environment pillar leads the way in our ambition to ensure the IP system supports and inspires innovators and creators so they, and society, get the most out of their ideas at home and abroad.

Our people are key to achieving these ambitions and that is why our ambition under our Brilliant Place to Work pillar is to create an environment where they can do their best work, ensuring they feel valued, have the right skills, resources and capability to deliver and the confidence to do what is right for our customers, stakeholders and each other.

To help achieve this, our focus in 2023/24 will be:

• delivering our core IP rights granting services
• continuing to transform the way we deliver our services through our One IPO Transformation Programme
• in Retained EU Law (REUL) and trade negotiations, seeking outcomes for the IP framework which benefit the UK economy
• evaluating our office-wide approach to supporting innovative SMEs in making the most of their IP assets
• developing our strategic workforce planning capability to enable us to build an organisation that is the right size and shape and has the skills and places it needs to deliver our priorities over the longer term
• undertaking a culture audit to better understand the current IPO culture and design our future culture needs
• confirming the vision for the IPO and developing the IPO strategy

Key activities and Outcomes

Priority 1: Delivering our core IP rights granting services

Key Activities:

We will:

• deliver 90% of patent examinations within 42 months
• deliver 90% of patent searches within 6 months
• deliver 90% of trade mark and design examination within 10 days
• develop and pilot an improved quality measure across our services to ensure we are delivering excellent IP rights for our customers

Outcomes:

• customers and the public will retain confidence, certainty and satisfaction when applying for rights and accessing IP services

Priority 2: Continuing to transform the way we deliver our services through our One IPO Transformation Programme

Key Activities:

We will:

• launch our One IPO transformed Patents service into private beta
• prepare our transformed Patents service to transition to a public beta environment for Financial Year 2024
• prepare and move our people to new and interim services whilst continuing to deliver existing systems
• launch our new search and journals service for all patents customers
• commence the second phase of our Transformation programme covering Trade Marks & Designs

Outcomes:

• private beta will allow us to test, refine and improve the new One IPO service so that it is ready for public launch in Spring 2024. Private beta will enable us to support our patent customers to start using the new service between September and April. The One IPO service will be launched for all patents customers in spring 2024
• transition plans in place for training and supporting our people as we transition to using the new One IPO system and services
• our new search and journals service will provide customers with more IP data than ever before and far more powerful tools to search, analyse and monitor IP
• begin the process of transforming our Trade Mark, Designs and Tribunals services to improve our customers’ experience in using our services ready for launch in 2025

Priority 3: In Retained EU Law and trade negotiations, seek outcomes for the IP framework which benefit the UK economy

Key Activities:

We will:

• continue engagement with the cross-Whitehall programme on retained EU Law
• work closely with the Department for Business and Trade to deliver the UK’s ambitious programme of trade agreements

Outcomes:

• REUL outcomes are clearly communicated to IP owners, users and other stakeholders
• UK trade agreements make the most of IP opportunities and encourage innovation and creativity whilst defending the UK system’s advantages; barriers to export are lowered for businesses

Priority 4: Evaluate our office-wide approach to supporting innovative SMEs in making the most of their IP assets

Key Activities:

We will:

• facilitate a cross-office working group to bring together all strands of SME support
• develop long-term policy on financial support for SMEs
• review and develop options for an enhanced International IP service
• Work with industry, other government departments, and international partners to understand recent progress in IP finance and identify areas for future intervention by the IPO
• implement a cross-office approach to develop our collective understanding of our SME audiences and their needs, with stronger feedback loops

Outcomes:

• we will have identified and agreed a sustainable approach to financial support for SMEs, that delivers Value for Money and impact
• mechanisms for expanding the reach, scope and impact of the International IP Service defined
• interventions identified to support innovative businesses to secure financing based on their IP
• our future activities, priorities and objectives will be both better aligned and informed by an enhanced understanding of our SME audiences

Priority 5: Developing our strategic workforce planning capability to enable us to build an organisation that is the right size and shape and has the skills and places it needs to deliver our priorities over the longer term

Key activities:

We will:

• identify the skills needed to deliver our longer-term strategic priorities
• develop plans to work towards achieving a workforce that is representative of the UK, with a focus on addressing gender, race and disability pay gaps
• review and redesign resourcing and skills strategies including talent pipelines
• start to implement Transformation workforce transition plans and monitor delivery
• agree our Accommodation and Leadership Strategies
• develop a Corporate Systems Roadmap to ensure our systems support our future needs

Outcomes:

• we have the technical capability and technology as well as the processes and systems to enable us to model complex workforce scenarios and can use this to develop 3–5-year workforce plans
• our workforce planning capability gives us confidence we are the right size and shape and have the right skills (or plans to acquire them) and the right accommodation to deliver our strategic ambitions
• we have access to the people resources we need, when we need them and our people have meaningful careers with opportunities to develop and progress
• our use of contingent labour is optimised so that we utilise contract resource when it is the best option for our business
• we understand and can predict how our workforce profile will change, and change is well planned and managed
• we have fit for purpose accommodation and leadership strategies which guide our decisions and support our aspirations to be a Brilliant Place to Work

Priority 6: Undertaking a culture audit to better understand the current IPO culture and design our future culture needs

Key activities:

We will:

• work with our people right across the IPO to undertake a culture audit to understand the current IPO culture and design the future culture that will support delivery of the IPO vision and strategy
• identify the organisational development activity required to move from our current culture to our target culture and develop a detailed culture change plan to set out when, how and by whom these actions will be undertaken
• review Internal Communications objectives to ensure alignment with the IPO vision and strategy and reflect how people connect in a hybrid workplace

Outcomes:

• clarity over the beliefs, policies, procedures, values, assumptions and behaviours that exist at the IPO and identification of the drivers of those
• definition of the target culture that will best support our strategic ambitions
• a culture development framework comprised of the activities that will deliver our target culture and that can be iterated over time forming a continuous cycle of improvement
• our people will understand and be engaged in our culture development work, and our words and actions will be aligned with the target culture ​
• our communications’ systems will support our target culture, our strategic ambitions and create a clear sense of IPO community

Priority 7: Confirming the vision for the IPO and developing the IPO strategy

Key activities:

We will:

• develop our future vision
• align our delivery plans to that future vision
• embed this future thinking into Policy and Services areas to develop key deliverables

Outcomes:

• a vision giving the organisation a shared sense of direction
• overarching strategic plans give the organisation clarity and a shared sense of direction
• Policy and Service areas feel more confident making more proactive decisions that are right for the future of the IP framework and our customers
• aligned IPO delivery plans to the strategic direction

Measuring our progress

Progress against our strategic priorities is reported to the IPO Board monthly through our Corporate Performance Scorecard. Through our scorecard we provide an update on progress against activities and measures to monitor impact.

Methodology for measuring success against our Ministerial Targets is agreed and audited by the Governmental Internal Audit Agency.

Ministerial targets

We have identified 4 targets to be our Ministerial Targets for 23/24. These are:

1. Launch our Transformed One IPO rights granting service for selected patents customers by end of March 2024.
2. Achieve an average overall customer satisfaction of 85% or more.
3. Define the ideal culture to deliver our strategy by October 2023 and develop a detailed culture change plan by January 2024 setting out how we will move from our current culture to our future ideal culture.
4. Achieve efficiencies worth at least 3.5% of our core operating costs.

Resources 2023/24

Our projected income for 2023/24 reflects a slowdown of growth compared to recent years, echoing the slowdown in the wider economy, however does fully cover our expenditure plans.

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.

	2022/23 Forecast	2023/24 Plan
Patents	84,091,000	86,818,000
Trade Marks	61,324,000	60,906,000
Designs	7,570,000	6,925,000
Other	555,000	561,000
Total Income	153,540,000	155,210,000
Pay	89,773,000	98,095,000
Non-pay	43,146,000	50,485,000
Depreciation	3,655,000	3,614,000
Interest etc	(1,696,000)	(984,000)
Dividend	4,154,000	4,000,000
Operating Spend	139,032,000	155,210,000
Non-Operating Spend, funded from reserves, includes Transformation Programme, Business Support, Capital Investment	39,155,000	51,941,000