You spot it on a Tuesday. A competitor’s new product page carries your product photography, or their packaging borrows a design you registered, or their brand name is close enough to yours that a customer has already asked whether you are the same business.
The instinct is immediate and it is almost always wrong. Sending a furious email that afternoon is the single most common way businesses weaken a position they would otherwise have won. That’s why we’ve partnered with intellectual property lawyers, LegalVision, to break down how to handle the theft of your IP.
First, Establish What You Actually Own
Before anything else, be precise about which right you are relying on, because the answer determines everything that follows.
Registered rights are the strongest position. A registered trade mark, a registered design, or a granted patent gives you a documented monopoly with a date attached, and enforcement is comparatively straightforward.
Unregistered rights are weaker but real. Copyright arises automatically in original work such as photographs, written content, software and drawings. Unregistered design right can protect the shape and configuration of a product. Passing off protects goodwill in a name or get-up you have built without registering, but it requires you to prove reputation, misrepresentation and damage, which is a considerably higher bar.
Confidential information and trade secrets sit in a category of their own and depend on whether the information was genuinely treated as confidential.
Many businesses discover at this stage that what they assumed was protected is not, or that the registration lapsed, or that the work was created by a freelancer who never assigned the copyright.
Gather the Evidence Before You Say Anything
Whatever you do next, do this first, because evidence disappears the moment the other side knows you have noticed.
Take dated screenshots of every instance, capturing the full page including the URL and the date. Archive the pages using a service that timestamps them independently. Buy the product if there is one, keep the receipt, and photograph it unopened. Record where you found it, when, and how.
Then assemble your own side: registration certificates, the date you first used the mark or published the work, invoices and contracts showing who created what, and evidence of your reputation in the market if passing off is in play.
A file assembled calmly on day one is worth more than anything you can reconstruct in month six.
Work Out What Outcome You Actually Want
Before contacting anyone, decide what a good result looks like, because the answer shapes the approach entirely.
Do you want them to stop? To stop and pay? To pay a licence fee and continue? To stop in one market and continue in another? Businesses frequently open with a demand to cease immediately and then discover, several thousand pounds later, that a licensing arrangement would have suited them better and cost the other side less to accept.
The commercial question also matters. If the competitor is small and the infringement marginal, an aggressive response may cost more in fees and reputation than the harm it addresses. If they are large and the copying systematic, an early soft approach may simply tell them you are not serious.
Write the desired outcome down in a sentence before you write anything else. It is the cheapest strategic step available and almost nobody takes it.
Do Not Send the Angry Email
Here is where businesses most often damage their own case, and the reason is a feature of UK law that catches people out.
For patents, trade marks and registered designs, there are statutory provisions on unjustified threats. If you threaten infringement proceedings and the threat turns out not to be justified, the person threatened may be able to bring a claim against you. That means an aggressive letter sent to your competitor’s customers or suppliers can convert you from claimant to defendant.
This is the point at which taking advice is genuinely cheaper than not taking it. A commercial law firm such as LegalVision, a leading UK law firm in intellectual property law, will look at what you own, what the other side is actually doing, and whether the communication you were about to send creates more exposure than it resolves.
There is also a strategic reason to pause. Sometimes the infringement is inadvertent, sometimes the other party has a licence you had forgotten about, and sometimes what looks like copying is independent creation. All three are survivable. An accusation that turns out to be wrong is much harder to walk back.
What the Official Guidance Actually Says
It is worth knowing that the government sets out a clear sequence, and it is not the one most businesses reach for.
The GOV.UK guidance on defending your intellectual property states plainly that it is your responsibility to defend your IP and to take action if someone has used it without permission. It then sets out three steps in order: get the other party to stop using your IP or come to an agreement with them, for example by licensing your IP; use mediation or another type of dispute resolution; and take legal action if you cannot resolve the dispute by other means.
Two things in that sequence deserve attention. Licensing appears as a first-tier option rather than a last resort, which is worth remembering when the emotional response is to demand the competitor stop entirely. And litigation is explicitly the final step rather than the opening move.
The same guidance notes that you may want help from an IP professional such as a solicitor, that the Intellectual Property Office can also help, and that it can be a criminal offence to copy or use copyright material and registered trade marks and designs without permission, with suspected IP crime reportable to Trading Standards through Citizens Advice.
This article is general information rather than legal advice, and the right course of action depends entirely on your circumstances. Take advice on your specific situation before acting.
Mediation Is Cheaper Than Almost Everything Else
Businesses tend to think of dispute resolution as a binary between doing nothing and going to court. The middle option is considerably better used than it is.
The IPO runs its own mediation service covering trade marks, copyright, designs and patents, using accredited mediators. At the time of writing, online mediation sessions are priced from £75 for one hour up to £175 for five hours, per party. Set against the cost of proceedings, that is a rounding error.
The catch is that mediation requires the other side to agree to it, so it is a route rather than a remedy. But a competitor who is embarrassed rather than malicious will often take it.
If It Does Go Further
The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court exists specifically so that smaller businesses can enforce IP rights without the cost of the High Court. It operates two tracks, one for smaller claims and one for claims up to a higher ceiling, with costs capped in a way that makes budgeting possible.
Knowing that the route exists changes the negotiating dynamic even if you never use it. A competitor who assumes you cannot afford to litigate behaves differently from one who knows there is a proportionate forum available.
The Cheapest Fix Is Upstream
Most IP disputes that businesses lose are lost long before the infringement.
Register the marks and designs that matter rather than relying on unregistered rights. Get written assignments from every freelancer, agency and contractor who creates anything for you, because in the absence of one the copyright usually stays with them. Diarise renewal dates. And run periodic searches for your own brand and product images so you find problems in month one rather than year three.
None of that is expensive. All of it is considerably cheaper than proving, two years later, that something you always assumed was yours actually is.
