Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many of the 900 businesses contacted as part of the IPO’s recent Exhaustion of Intellectual Property rights feasibility study (a) responded and (b) were interviewed; and whether he plans to consult businesses further on the matter.

The IPO commissioned Ernst & Young to assess whether it was possible to measure the scale of parallel trade in the UK. As part of that research, a pilot quantitative survey was conducted. As detailed in the report published in 2019, there were 208 respondents from the 926 initial contacts. Of the 208 respondents, the researchers spoke to 170 respondents about taking part in the survey for this research. Of those, 26 respondents were willing to take part in the survey, but no full interviews were completed due to respondents not passing the initial screening question, respondents being unaware of parallel trade and respondents not engaging in parallel trade.

That being said, the decision on the UK’s future exhaustion regime still needs to be made. The IPO is holding a consultation on this matter in the first part of 2021 and the government will be proactively seeking views from businesses and consumers. We would encourage businesses and consumers to respond to this consultation with their views and any evidence.