FTSE-listed gaming giant Entain has formally urged the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to implement immediate, restrictive changes to its trademark registration rules.
The administrative intervention follows an internal corporate compliance audit which established that multiple black-market gambling operators lacking valid domestic regulatory permits have successfully secured active UK trademark registrations.
Entain confirmed that its legal departments performed a detailed compliance review of 18 digital gambling brands actively serving UK consumers without approval from the Gambling Commission, discovering that 14 of those unlicensed entities successfully maintained active UK trademark protections.
The group’s formal letter pointed to specific examples, including several active digital platforms with documented Russian corporate links, that had successfully registered UK trademarks despite operating outside the boundary of state gambling laws.
Closing the Regulatory Vacuum in British Intellectual Property
Simon Zinger, Entain’s Group General Counsel and Chief Customer Care Officer, warned in an official letter transmitted to IPO Chief Executive and Comptroller-General Adam Williams that the current administrative landscape accidentally grants commercial legitimacy to criminal operators:
“The UK trade mark register is currently accessible to operators providing gambling services to UK consumers without a Gambling Commission operating licence. Operating gambling facilities in Great Britain without a licence is a criminal offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005. Despite this, entities committing that offence can nonetheless register UK trade marks, acquire the commercial legitimacy that registration confers, and use the UK’s trade mark registration system to sustain operations that Parliament has expressly prohibited.”
“The UK’s intellectual property system is rightly regarded as one of the best in the world. It would be a significant anomaly if that system continued, inadvertently, to extend its protections to operators who have placed themselves outside the law that governs the sector in which they operate.”
To close the legal gap between intellectual property frameworks and the Gambling Act, Entain has proposed a multi-layered reform model. First, the group suggests exploring whether existing statutory public policy and morality exclusions can be legally applied to block trademark applicants whose core underlying business model is unlawful under the Gambling Act.
Second, the group demands that the registry require all gambling applicants to produce verified proof of an active Gambling Commission license prior to granting any trademark protections.
Intellectual Property Office Outlines Current Statutory Limits
The UK IPO formally responded to Entain’s brief on June 2, confirming that the operator’s compliance concerns have been routed to the senior team responsible for national trademark policy to coordinate a formal discussion meeting.
However, IPO Chief Adam Williams highlighted distinct legal limitations within the current statutory framework, clarifying that under active UK law, formal objections can only be raised if there is an explicit issue with the structural design or text of the mark itself, rather than the applicant’s broader corporate conduct or how the logo is deployed commercially.
Furthermore, Williams noted that the IPO does not maintain a pre-approval vetting mechanism comparable to the rigid naming restrictions applied to company registries by Companies House. Addressing geopolitical concerns, Williams emphasized that the registry continues to enforce strict international trade sanctions:
“The IPO has moved quickly to implement sanctions which we are enforcing robustly. The IPO does not accept fees or provide associated services to those on the UK sanctions list, either directly or through their agents.”
