The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) continues their digital transformation project with what is reported to be a new and simpler way to search for UK patents. The “One IPO Search” tool is now live and will replace the current search tool “Ipsum”. This is the first of a suite of new tools to bring all IP services under a single system, termed the One IPO system.
Users of Ipsum will be aware that searches were limited to patent reference numbers. It will still be possible to conduct searches in the same way, but the new One IPO Search will have a wider range of features and capabilities, such as a patent watch tool and different search fields.
We welcome the news of the new search tool, because it goes beyond the mere digitisation of the existing services that are provided by the UK IPO and makes searching for UK patents much simpler. We hope that with this new search tool, UK patents will become more even more accessible to anyone interested in the technical information they contain. We are eagerly looking forward to the next tool in the One IPO transformation program.
For more information, please see a press release from the UK IPO below:
About One IPO Search
A new online search tool for UK patents will make it easier for businesses and innovators to search and access patent information, supporting UK growth and innovation.
One IPO Search replaces the previous Ipsum service, which has served UK innovators well for 13 years - handling approximately 200,000 patent searches in the past 12 months alone.
The new service offers enhanced features to help IP professionals and the public search for UK patents more easily. It represents a 'generational leap' which will transform how customers can search for and discover patents, opening up the IPO's data to all UK citizens.
One IPO Search offers:
- flexible searching by application number, keywords, classification and grant dates
- online access to Supplementary Protection Certificates dating back to 1998
- visual data analysis through charts and graphs
- patent trend analysis and statistics
- customisable patent journal creation - based on date ranges and own search criteria
Several additional features will be coming to One IPO Search in the future, including:
- save searches and get patent notifications (2025)
- AI-assisted searching
- new APIs for bulk data access
- integrated trade mark and design searches (2026)
What will happen to Ipsum and other patent searches?
- Ipsum, the patent journal and other UK patent search tools will all be replaced when One IPO Search goes live.
- There will be a short period of approximately 90 minutes that none of our patent searches will be available before the new search goes live.
- Links to Ipsum will be redirected to the new search for a few weeks after launch.
- You should update any bookmarks you have saved to Ipsum and replace them with links to the new search.