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A reminder that the deadline to submit your views to the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) on Standard Essential Patents is 7 October 2025.
As we previously reported in July 2025, the UKIPO launched a consultation seeking views from stakeholders on how to improve the UK's SEP licensing ecosystem.
By way of background, a Standard Essential Patent (SEP) is a patent that protects technology essential to implementing a technical standard—such as 5G or Wi-Fi. These patents are crucial for ensuring that devices and systems from different manufacturers can work together seamlessly, underpinning everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.
The UKIPO has gathered evidence on the SEP landscape since 2021 and wants to source stakeholder views on the identified challenges, such as a lack of transparency in licensing and dispute resolution. The UKIPO wants to address the issues that can create barriers to innovation, particularly for SMEs and new market entrants.
The consultation sets out a range of potential measures to address these perceived challenges including:
- Introduction of a new specialist track within the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court to make case-by-case determinations of SEP licence rates.
- Making disclosure of information about SEPs to the UKIPO mandatory.
- Introducing SEP specific pre-action protocols.
Any interested party can contribute, including SEP holders, technology implementers, legal professionals, industry bodies, academics, and consumer groups. Responses can be submitted via the government's Citizen Space platform or by emailing SEPs@ipo.gov.uk. The consultation closes at 23:59 on 7 October 2025.
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