Exporting and Intellectual Property (Part 3)

There is currently a lot of talk in the UK about exports, particularly as a route to growth for our manufacturing base. In Part 1, we discussed the new intellectual property (IP) environment you will encounter when entering a new market abroad, and in Part 2, we discussed “exporting” your UK intellectual property. Here, we discuss some of the good news. IP aspects of exporting aren’t all about bad news and risk. For example, profits achieved by exporting a product which is patented in the UK (or some other approved jurisdictions) can benefit under the UK Patent Box provisions. These reduce UK corporation tax, even for profits from sales abroad. There may be IP mechanisms which work better for you in some countries than in the UK. For example, China and Japan have some enforcement mechanisms which don’t have clear parallels in the UK. Some countries provide much greater protection for company names than in the UK (which might be an argument in favour of setting up a company under local law, with appropriate controls in place). We’ll explore another aspect of exporting and IP in a later posting.

In the meantime, if you wish to discuss your export plans in more detail, please contact your normal Swindell & Pearson Ltd attorney or [email protected]. We want intellectual property to work for you, not against you.