The UK government announced on 4 November 2026 a set of reforms to the country's designs system, responding to an Intellectual Property Office consultation that closed in November 2025. The government said the changes aim to help the roughly 80,000 design businesses, a sector it says contributed close to £137 billion to the economy in 2023 and supports more than 2 million jobs. It noted that lone designers and microbusinesses have been estimated to make up 92% of design businesses and that the current system has long been criticised as overly complex.

The plans include giving the IPO new powers to consider whether a design is genuinely new, and whether it has individual character, before registration. The government said affected businesses have reported spending between £10,000 and more than £50,000 to resolve disputes over registrations used to block competitors. It will also consider legislation on refusing bad-faith applications, subject to further work defining bad faith. Other measures include allowing registered design cases in the IPEC Small Claims Track, where compensation claims are capped at £10,000, and a new 30-month deferment period.

The package also covers clearer protection for designs involving animation, with new options for filing moving image files, simplified rules for unregistered protection, and a more streamlined registration process. The government said it is ruling out criminal offences for unregistered design infringement, citing insufficient robust evidence, and that the existing framework for computer-generated designs will remain while it monitors AI use.