New IP Minister Announced

The government has named Viscount Camrose as the new minister with responsibility for intellectual property.

On 16 March, the government named Viscount Camrose as the new minister with responsibility for intellectual property. Viscount Camrose has been given the newly created role of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for AI and Intellectual Property and will be part of the ministerial team at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which was created in February.

The new ministerial position transfers oversight of the Intellectual Property Office and IP from the previous minister, George Freeman MP, and combines it with responsibility for AI and the Office for Artificial Intelligence, which was formally a joint Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) unit.

Viscount Camrose is a hereditary peer and entered the House of Lords after winning a by-election in March 2022 caused by the departure of Lord Rotherwick, whose retirement freed up a conservative hereditary seat in the upper chamber. Viscount Camrose's family have close ties to the newspaper industry and owned the Daily Telegraph until its sale in 1986, with the current Viscount's father, Adrian Berry, serving as the newspaper's science correspondent from 1977 to 1997.