Time is money: How regulators can support growth

House of Lords Committee on Industry and Regulators – inquiry into regulators and growth

On 16 January 2026, CIPA submitted its comments to The House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee inquiry into regulators and growth. The response was compiled by the Regulatory Affairs Committee and is set out below. On 12 May 2026, the Industry and Regulators Committee published its findings, see the overview online – “Time to act” if regulation is going to help deliver growth – which includes the full report in HTML or as a PDF.

The regulation of the patent attorney profession, nationally and internationally, illustrates how regulatory complexity can arise within well-intentioned statutory frameworks, and how that complexity can affect the ability of regulators and regulated professions to support innovation, investment and economic growth. Patent attorneys play a critical role in the UK’s innovation ecosystem. They support innovators and businesses, particularly in high-growth and technology-rich sectors, to protect intellectual property, attract investment, commercialise research and compete internationally. The agility and effectiveness of the regulatory framework have direct implications for economic growth.

The core activities of patent attorneys are drafting and filing patent applications, navigating the technically and legally challenging examination process and opposing or defending patents in patent office proceedings. In the UK, these activities are not reserved legal activities and so can be carried out without regulation at the UK Intellectual Property Office (‘UK IPO’). Before the European Patent Office (‘EPO’), where UK representatives practise very extensively and successfully, to the profit of the UK economy, these activities are regulated, but not under UK regulation. It is a peculiarity of the regulation of patent attorneys that a person struck off the Register of Patent Attorneys for malpractice can continue to represent clients in proceedings at the UK IPO as an unregulated representative, unlike other legal professionals in the judicial system.

It is important to recognise that patent attorneys operate in an almost exclusively business-to-business environment. This means that the number of complaints received, even at the first-tier level direct to patent attorney firms, are few in number. The number of complaints escalated to the regulatory body or the Legal Ombudsman is even fewer. This is because of the nature of the client-attorney relationship, which does not extend into the ‘consumer’ model prevalent in the other legal professions. For example, patent attorneys do not handle significant volumes of client money unlike more general legal practices in areas such as conveyancing. Patent attorneys present little, if any, risk to consumers and the general public and are a driver of economic growth. Regulation should be light touch and proportionate to that risk.

Chartered Patent Attorneys operate in two paradigms, regulation in the UK and regulation in Europe.

Regulation in the UK

In the UK, CIPA’s members are regulated by the Intellectual Property Regulation Board (‘IPReg’), an arm’s-length regulatory body established jointly by CIPA and the Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys under the Legal Services Act 2007 (‘LSA’). The LSA names CIPA as the approved regulator for the patent attorney profession in the UK and requires CIPA to ensure that its regulatory responsibilities are discharged distinctly and separately from CIPA’s representative activities as a professional body. This separation, in and of itself, adds complexity and cost to the regulatory framework.

The LSA, which applies only to England and Wales, introduced regulation in respect of legal services, including reserved legal activities and entity authorisation, under the oversight of the Legal Services Board (‘LSB’). The six reserved legal activities are: the exercise of a right of audience (advocacy in court), the conduct of litigation (managing court cases), reserved instrument activities (e.g. conveyancing and preparation of deeds), probate activities, notarial activities and the administration of oaths. None of these impact on the core activities of patent attorneys as set out above.

In addition to its regulatory authority under the LSA, CIPA has delegated to IPReg its responsibilities under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (‘CDPA’), which applies across the whole of the United Kingdom. CIPA has members based in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in addition to those in England and Wales. Whilst the qualifications for solicitors and barristers are different in the different nations of the UK, the law for IP is predominantly the same throughout the UK. The CDPA establishes the patent attorney profession in law; names CIPA as the keeper of the Register of Patent Attorneys and as the regulator responsible for the educational and training requirements of the profession; regulates the use of the protected professional title ‘patent attorney’; and provides legal privilege for communication with patent attorneys.

Regulation in the UK has been further complicated by recent developments in Scotland. The Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2025 introduces a modernisation of legal services regulation in Scotland. In CIPA’s opinion, its most controversial provision is the ‘land grab’ of the generic title ‘lawyer’ under section 90. When the relevant provisions come into force, it will be a criminal offence for any person who is not on a register maintained under section 16 or a licensed provider to take or use the title lawyer in connection with providing legal services. This blunt protection of the term impacts adversely on other qualified legal professionals, most notably patent attorneys, who are regulated UK-wide under IPReg and where the term lawyer is recognised internationally.

CIPA contends that the regulatory framework for patent attorneys in the UK is overly and unnecessarily complex:

• Two distinct but overlapping Acts with differing geographical jurisdictions. The CDPA provides the legal basis for the operation of the patent attorney profession and is consistent across the four nations of the UK. The LSA homogenises the legal services professions, treating patent attorneys the same as solicitors and barristers, and is applicable only in England and Wales.
• The LSB, as the oversight regulator for the approved regulators (such as CIPA) and the arm’s-length regulatory bodies (such as IPReg), adds unnecessary and burdensome complexity to the regulatory framework. CIPA would go as far as to say that it sees little, if any, value or benefit from the work of the LSB, despite the extensive and ever-increasing levy placed on the arm’s-length regulatory bodies and therefore the regulated community. This is especially true in relation to economic growth, where the LSB is not subject to any statutory duty to promote or support economic growth and, to the best of our knowledge, the LSB has never carried out any risk assessment or analysis of the impact of its policies on economic growth.
• The patent attorney profession experiences ‘collateral damage’, that is to say it experiences negative impact from LSB interventions or initiatives aimed at perceived problems with solicitor or barrister practice, which do not recognise that the patent attorney profession operates differently. Examples include:

1. The LSB’s burdensome process for the approval of changes to the regulatory arrangements and compliance with the internal governance rules.
2. The LSB’s approach to complaints handling, which is disproportionate to the level of risk in the patent attorney profession and which fails to recognise the business-to-business environment in which CIPA’s members
3. The LSB’s imposition of financial and operational burdens on the patent attorney profession, with the annual levy of approximately 7% of IPReg’s budget being disproportionate to IPReg regulating only 1.7% of regulated persons.
4. The LSB intervening unnecessarily in the implementation of economic
5. The LSB’s response to the High Court’s decision in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys, which required CIPA and IPReg to commit resources to provide evidence of compliance with the law on the conduct of litigation, regardless of the level of risk in the patent attorney profession.

• The separation of regulatory and representative functions, whilst demonstrating openness and transparency in the regulatory process, adds further complexity. CIPA is not contending that this separation has a negative impact on the regulatory framework and its role in economic growth. In IPReg, we have a fit-for-purpose regulatory body, operating independently from CIPA and focused on the patent attorney profession.
• There is the key question as to who should lead on economic growth. CIPA, as the professional body for patent attorneys, has a clear and ambitious focus on economic growth. We have given evidence to parliamentary inquiries, taken innovative patent-holding UK startups to a meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, engaged with senior parliamentarians and civil servants and achieved media coverage to show how government departments are constraining the potential of UK technology start-ups, with serious consequences for the government’s growth agenda. We would be pleased to brief the Committee on the specific actions we are taking to support growth.

Regulation in Europe

In Europe, CIPA’s members operate as European Patent Attorneys regulated by the Institute of Professional Representatives before the EPO, known as the European Patent Institute, representing clients before the EPO under the European Patent Convention (‘EPC’). The EPC is an international multilateral treaty that establishes a unified system for granting European patents. Under the EPC, a single European patent application can be filed with the EPO and, once granted, the patent can be validated and enforced in each of the 39 designated Contracting States under national law or converted into a unitary patent for many EU states.

The EPC is not a European Union treaty; it is an international treaty between 39 sovereign states. These include all EU member states and many non-EU countries, including the UK. The UK’s departure from the EU did not affect its membership of the EPC nor its ability to participate in the European patent system. CIPA’s members who are European Patent Attorneys retain full rights of representation before the EPO and European patents can still be validated in the UK as part of the EPC.

This is important to note, as 75% of the work of CIPA’s members takes place before the EPO, for both innovative UK innovators and businesses and international clients, with UK patent attorneys contributing in excess of £1.5 billion gross value added to the annual UK economy. The UK patent attorney profession sits front and centre of the government’s ambitions for economic growth, helping new and existing innovative companies secure protection for their intellectual property. Regulation through the European system is as important for economic growth as is the UK framework yet is light-touch.

Call to action for the Committee

 The Committee has a clear opportunity to support economic growth by addressing regulatory frameworks that, while well-intentioned, impose disproportionate complexity on professions that are fundamental to innovation.

CIPA invites the Committee to:

• Recognise that patent attorneys are distinct from other legal professions and that regulatory frameworks designed for solicitors and barristers are not an appropriate proxy for regulating a specialist, innovation-focused profession which operates in a Europe-wide market, competing with firms in, among others, Germany and France to secure representative work before the EPO for overseas patent applicants.
• Examine the cumulative impact of overlapping regulation under the LSA and the CDPA, and more recent regulatory change in Scotland, particularly where this duplication adds cost and administrative burden without delivering commensurate public benefit.
• Question the value added by LSB oversight in respect of the patent attorney profession and consider whether its interventions and levy arrangements are proportionate to the risks presented and the nature of patent attorney practice.
• Encourage a more proportionate, outcomes-focused approach to regulation, drawing on the light-touch but effective European patent system, which supports innovation while maintaining high professional standards.
• Ensure that responsibility for supporting economic growth is clearly aligned with those best placed to deliver it, recognising the role of professional bodies such as CIPA in advocacy, policy engagement and direct support for innovative businesses.

If the government’s growth ambitions are to be realised, regulation must actively enable the professionals who help businesses protect intellectual property, attract investment and compete globally. The patent attorney profession is one such enabler and its regulatory framework should reflect that reality. CIPA would welcome the opportunity to provide further evidence or to brief the Committee directly on how regulatory reform in this area could deliver tangible growth benefits for the UK economy.