Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that online marketplaces selling into the UK are held accountable for listings that may infringe upon intellectual property rights of UK based manufacturing businesses.

The Government is committed to protecting intellectual property rights and supporting UK businesses and consumers against online infringement. In the UK, enforcement action is led by Trading Standards and the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, which work with online marketplaces to remove counterfeit and infringing listings.

The Intellectual Property Office engages regularly with many of the major e-commerce platforms and rights holders, in the UK and internationally, to ensure effective policies and processes for identifying and removing infringing content are in place. It also works with international partners, including the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, to promote best practice.