The UKIPO API for trademark search
Access 2.8M Intellectual Property Office records via API. Normalized data, sub-second response, and daily sync — all through Signa's unified trademark API.
Search UKIPO in one POST request.
One REST endpoint. Filter by offices: ['UKIPO'] to scope to ~2.8M UKIPO records, or drop the filter to search every office.
Sub-300ms p95 on UKIPO queries
Exact, phonetic, fuzzy, and prefix strategies in one request.
Canonical status & raw code preserved
status.primary for filtering, status.raw_code if you need it.
Verifiable freshness
Every record includes updated_at.
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2.8M records
UKIPO register indexed and queryable through one endpoint.
Daily sync
Database synced regularly with UKIPO's source publication.
100% field accuracy
Validated against UKIPO source data across a 3,200-field spot-check audit.
Normalized schema
24 raw UKIPO status codes mapped to a canonical status object — same shape across every office.
What is UKIPO?
The Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) is the United Kingdom's national trademark registry, operating as an executive agency of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) from its headquarters in Newport, Wales. Since the UK's departure from the European Union on 1 January 2021, UKIPO has been a wholly independent filing jurisdiction — EU trademarks no longer extend to the UK, and a separate UK filing (or Madrid designation of GB) is now required for UK protection.
At the moment of Brexit, UKIPO automatically cloned every existing EU Trade Mark and EU-designated International Registration onto the UK register as a "comparable UK right". These appear under two specific prefixes — UK009 for cloned EUTMs and UK008 for cloned EU designations of International Registrations — and retain the original filing, priority, and seniority dates. Roughly 1.4M comparable rights were created overnight, more than doubling the size of the UK register and creating a distinct numbering cohort that any serious UK trademark workflow has to handle correctly.
UKIPO runs the Trade Marks Act 1994 examination regime, with a strong absolute-grounds review, a two-month opposition window (extendable by one month on request), and 10-year renewable terms. The office has historically exposed register data through the Ipsum service, which is now being replaced by the "One IPO Search" platform and a planned bulk-data API. Signa ingests UKIPO data through the available register endpoints and the published bulk files, normalizing UK national filings, Madrid designations of GB, UK009 comparable EUTMs, and UK008 comparable International Registrations into a single unified schema with the same status vocabulary used across every other office on the platform.
Unique features
- Post-Brexit jurisdiction — UK is a fully independent filing system since 1 January 2021, no longer covered by EUTMs
- Comparable UK rights — ~1.4M EUTMs cloned to UK register on Brexit day with UK009 prefix; EU designations of IRs cloned with UK008 prefix
- Madrid Protocol member — UK can be designated through WIPO, and UK marks can use Madrid for international filings
- Two-month opposition window from advertisement, extendable by one month with TM7A "cooling-off" request
- Absolute grounds examination — UKIPO actively refuses descriptive, non-distinctive, and deceptive marks under Section 3
- Relative grounds search-and-notify — UKIPO searches earlier marks and notifies owners of conflicting applications, but does not refuse on that basis
- Multi-class single application — one filing can cover all 45 Nice classes (fees scale per class above the first)
- Series marks (legacy) — up to six fundamentally identical variations in one application; being phased out under the digital transformation programme
- 10-year term, renewable indefinitely in 10-year blocks; no use-based maintenance declarations (unlike USPTO)
UKIPO direct (One IPO Search + Ipsum) vs Signa.
UKIPO does not currently offer a general-purpose public REST API for trademark data. The Ipsum service is being retired and replaced by "One IPO Search", with bulk-data APIs publicly committed for the 2026 rollout but not yet broadly available. In practice, building UK coverage today means scraping the web search tool, parsing weekly Trade Marks Journal PDFs, or waiting for a UKIPO data-access agreement. Here's what changes when you use Signa instead.
| Dimension | UKIPO direct (One IPO Search + Ipsum) | Signa |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Apply for UKIPO data access, build an HTML scraper against trademarks.ipo.gov.uk, parse weekly journal PDFs | Sign up, copy API key, curl the endpoint |
| Data shape | HTML pages and PDF journals with UKIPO-specific status terminology and four distinct number prefixes (UK000, UK008, UK009, plus Madrid IRs) | Normalized JSON with canonical status object and unified schema — UK national, Madrid GB, UK008, and UK009 records share the same fields as every other office |
| Comparable rights | You have to detect UK008 and UK009 prefixes yourself and decide how to surface their EUTM parentage | Comparable UK rights are flagged with a parent_office reference back to the originating EUTM record on EUIPO, so you can pivot between the UK and EU registers in a single query |
| Freshness | Weekly Trade Marks Journal is the canonical publication; scraping the search tool gets you current status but no change feed | Pre-ingested by Signa with a daily sync; records carry an updated_at timestamp so you can verify freshness on every read |
| Coverage | UK only — add EUIPO, WIPO, USPTO separately, each with a different format and access model | UKIPO + 20 other offices through the same endpoint, including a real cross-office link from UK009 marks back to the original EUTM |
If UKIPO ships the promised public bulk-data API in 2026, building directly will become a genuinely viable option for UK-only use cases. Signa exists for the case where you need the data today, want it normalized against 20 other offices, or care about the UK008/UK009 lineage back to EUIPO.
UKIPO API — Frequently asked questions
Everything developers ask before integrating UKIPO data
Need something else? See our documentation
UKIPO API basics
Brexit & comparable rights
Need something else? See our documentation
Ready to search 2.8M UKIPO trademarks via API?
Start with 1,000 free UKIPO requests/month. 2.8M records indexed, normalized data across 20+ offices through the same endpoint.
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