Event round-up: Navigating intellectual property (IP) risks and opportunities

techUK recently hosted a webinar on navigating intellectual property (IP) risks and opportunities, bringing together experts from Marsh and Bristows to help SMEs and larger tech organisations strengthen their IP strategies. The session explored how IP rights operate in the UK, the realities of IP litigation, emerging challenges for the tech sector, and the growing role of IP insurance.

Understanding IP Rights

The webinar began with an overview of the main forms of IP protection:

• Patents – safeguarding technical inventions for up to 20 years, provided they are novel and non‑obvious. Speakers emphasised the importance of keeping inventions confidential before filing, and weighing patents against trade secrets depending on how easily the innovation could be reverse‑engineered.
• Trademarks – protecting brands, logos, and even unusual identifiers such as shapes or colours. Registrations must be made territory by territory and aligned with the goods and services a business offers.
• Copyright & Design Rights – automatically protecting original code, user interfaces, and product designs, though not ideas or functionality. Clear contracts are crucial to ensure IP ownership when collaborating or outsourcing.
• Database rights also offer automatic protection where substantial effort has been invested in compiling or structuring data.

IP Litigation: Costs, Triggers and Remedies

The legal team explained common triggers for disputes, including entering new markets, launching new products, rebranding, or expanding product lines. Given the territorial nature of IP, companies must assess risks across all markets where they operate.

UK litigation can be costly: even streamlined cases may reach £500k, while complex High Court patent disputes can exceed £2m. Remedies typically include injunctions, damages for past infringement, and potential revocation of invalid rights. The losing party normally pays a significant portion of the winner’s legal costs.

Role of IP Insurance

Marsh outlined how IP insurance can support both SMEs and larger companies by covering:

• Defence costs and damages for infringement claims
• Contractual indemnities in licensing agreements
• Enforcement actions against infringers
• Brand and reputation support
• Product withdrawal expenses and loss of profits in certain scenarios

Policies can cover an entire IP portfolio or specific rights, offering valuable protection, especially when entering new jurisdictions or engaging in partnerships where power imbalances exist.

Hot Topics: UPC, AI & Platform Liability

Speakers highlighted several fast‑moving areas impacting tech businesses:

• The Unified Patent Court (UPC) now enables Europe‑wide patent enforcement (across 18 states), creating both opportunities for broad relief and risks of multi‑country exposure.
• AI and IP conflicts are escalating, including disputes over training data, infringement through AI‑generated outputs, and questions around copyright ownership in AI-assisted creations.
• Courts are increasingly holding platform providers—not just individual sellers—liable for infringing products or apps sold through their marketplaces.

Key Takeaway

With rapid innovation and increasing IP complexity, tech businesses—particularly SMEs—must proactively safeguard their rights, carry out clearance checks, use strong contractual protections, and consider IP insurance as part of their risk management toolkit.

Event Round-up