The fourth meeting of the UKFT x BFC Industry Government Forum will be co-hosted with Walpole, and will provide an introduction to the UK government’s consultation on the UK’s future regime for exhaustion of intellectual property (IP) rights.

Sally Britton, Mishcon de Reya, will provide an overview of exhaustion of rights regimes and lead discussion on the consultation. The question of what our future exhaustion regime should be is an important one because it will govern future rules on parallel trade. Parallel trade is the cross-border movement of goods that have already been placed on the market in a specific geographic territory. The consultation sets out options for the UK’s future exhaustion regime and is of importance to businesses and consumers as any potential changes may impact a wide range of sectors where there is parallel trade of physical goods which are protected by copyright, design rights, patents and/or trade marks.