Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Intellectual property definition

What does Intellectual property mean? Intellectual property describes intangible legal rights in creative, technical and branding outputs used and enforced in commercial practice, often abbreviated to IP or IPR. In the UK and Ireland the term is descriptive rather than a single statutory definition; discrete rights arise under specific regimes, typically including copyright, patents, trade marks, registered and unregistered designs, database right, trade secrets and confidential information, and the common law tort of passing off. These rights are territorial, generally time‑limited (trade secrets/confidential information can subsist indefinitely if secrecy is maintained), and confer exclusive rights that can be licensed, assigned, charged as security and...

UK intellectual property jurisdiction post-Brexit: common law framework, foreign rights, patents, trade marks, copyright, designs, court allocation, internet targeting, anti-suit injunctions and forum strategy

Published by a LexisNexis IP expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note

It explains how to assess whether the UK courts have authority to hear an IP dispute. It reviews the general landscape for conflicts about IP rights, and then identifies specific considerations for patents, trade marks, Copyright and design rights. The emphasis is on the courts of England and Wales (often called the English courts for ease), while also addressing how cases are allocated across the different UK courts. For convenience, these are sometimes described as the English courts, yet the Note also considers how work is distributed between the various courts across the UK. Although IP protections operate on a national or regional territorial footing, the characteristics of the underlying subject matter (eg inventions, literary works, and the like) enable near‑instant cross‑border movement, particularly in the digital era. Therefore, deciding which court has jurisdiction can be a complicated question. The law on jurisdiction has altered significantly since the UK’s departure from the EU. As this field continues to evolve, this Practice Note aims to provide a straightforward overview of the principal rules, with signposts to more detailed materials on the specific topics as appropriate. The position has evolved. Before the UK’s exit from the EU, the issue...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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