What the government's AI copyright report means for trademark owners

On 18 March 2026, the government published its long-awaited report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence. It runs to 125 pages. It draws on over 11,500 consultation responses. It covers everything from web scraping transparency to digital replicas of celebrities' voices.

It doesn't mention trademark monitoring once.

And that tells you everything you need to know.

The report in 30 seconds

The report was required by section 136 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. The government had to set out its position on how copyright law should apply to AI training, what transparency rules AI developers should follow, and how rights holders can enforce their IP in a world where AI can scrape, learn from, and reproduce creative work at scale.

The headline? No new copyright exception. No new regulator. No new enforcement body. The government's originally preferred approach, a broad data mining exception with an opt-out for rights holders, has been dropped after overwhelming opposition from the creative industries.

Instead, the report proposes more evidence gathering, best practice guidance, and continued monitoring of international developments.

The enforcement gap nobody is filling

The most striking theme running through the report is enforcement. Or rather, the gap between having rights and being able to enforce them.

The report is refreshingly honest about this. It acknowledges that enforcement must be accessible to rights holders of all sizes, including SMEs. It notes that even well-resourced companies have spent millions pursuing a single case. Getty Images, for example, said publicly that it invested millions of pounds to reach a single ruling against one AI provider, and that was with a dedicated legal team and deep pockets.

The report also describes the IPEC small claims track, which handles cases worth up to 10,000 pounds without parties needing legal representation. That sounds promising until you realise that most AI-related IP disputes will far exceed that threshold.

For SMEs, the practical reality hasn't changed. You have rights. Enforcing them is expensive. And nobody is doing it for you.

Why this matters beyond copyright

The report is about copyright and AI. But the enforcement gap it describes is identical to the one trademark owners face every day.

Since 2007, the UK IPO has not refused trademark applications on relative grounds. That means if someone applies to register a mark that's confusingly similar to yours, the IPO won't flag it. The burden is entirely on existing rights holders to spot conflicts and oppose them within a two-month window.

The IPO publishes every new application in the Trade Marks Journal. But it doesn't tell you when a conflicting mark appears. It doesn't alert you. It doesn't monitor anything on your behalf.

If you miss the window, your options narrow dramatically. You can pursue cancellation proceedings, which are more complex and expensive than opposition. Or you can take court action, which brings you right back to the enforcement gap the government's report describes so well.

The parallel with copyright is almost exact. In both cases, the law gives you rights. In both cases, enforcing those rights requires you to know about the infringement in the first place. And in both cases, the government has confirmed it isn't planning to build the infrastructure to help you do that.

The Dryrobe precedent

There's an irony buried in the timing of this report. Last year, the High Court handed down its judgment in Dryrobe v Caesr Group. It was a trademark case, not a copyright one, but the principle is directly relevant.

The judge found that Dryrobe's trademark survived a genericide challenge in part because the company had engaged in what the court described as "relentless" monitoring and enforcement. They watched for misuse. They sent cease and desist letters. They challenged applications. They didn't wait for someone else to do it.

The court didn't just approve this approach. It treated it as evidence that the trademark was still functioning as a badge of origin. Monitoring wasn't just good practice. It was the reason the mark survived.

Now read that alongside the government's AI copyright report, which essentially tells rights holders: we're not building you an enforcement system, you need to watch your own IP.

The message from both the courts and the government is the same. If you're not actively monitoring your intellectual property, you're at risk of losing it.

What SMEs should take from this

The report is thorough, balanced, and honest about the limits of what it can achieve. It's right to be cautious about rushing into copyright reform. The international landscape is shifting, litigation is ongoing, and the technology is evolving faster than legislation can keep up.

But for small business owners, the practical takeaway is simple.

Whether we're talking about AI scraping your creative work or someone applying for a trademark that conflicts with your brand, the enforcement model is the same. You have to find the problem before you can do anything about it.

The government has confirmed it isn't going to do that for you. Not through a new regulator. Not through new enforcement infrastructure. Not yet, anyway.

So the question for every SME with a registered trademark is: who is watching yours?