Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of legislation to (a) support small businesses when trading online and (b) protect small businesses from infringement of their intellectual property rights.

The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 protects businesses from misleading advertising by other businesses, and are enforced by Trading Standards.

The Government recently introduced the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill to establish a new pro-competition regime that will force the most powerful tech firms to treat businesses in the UK fairly – including small businesses.

The options available to a business which believes its intellectual property (IP) is being infringed online depend on the type of IP, where it is registered and where the alleged infringement is taking place.