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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to legislate to ensure that web search engines de-index (1) URLs or (2) websites from its web search index when trademarks have been infringed.

There are various options available to trade mark owners who believe their rights have been infringed online, and these range from injunctive web site blocking available through the courts, to voluntary cooperation between enforcement agencies and registrars such as Nominet to suspend domain names that are used for IP infringing activity.

The government works closely with web search engines on a number of voluntary initiatives to tackle IP infringement of all kinds online.