Product regulation

Contact: Gavin Reese and Dorothy Flower

Product regulation

Guidance on product safety and noncompliance published

On 18 March 2025, the Office for Product Safety & Standards (OPSS) published guidance for surveillance and enforcement authorities in relation to product safety and noncompliance. Surveillance and enforcement authorities in the UK are required to notify the Secretary of State if products are noncompliant or pose a health and safety risk. The notifications requirement are regulated by the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 and the Regulation on Accreditation and Market Surveillance (GB RAMS) and sector-specific product safety legislation in Great Britain, and in Northern Ireland by the EU General Product Safety Regulation 2023/988 (EU GPSR) and the Regulation on Market Surveillance and Compliance of Products 2019/1020 as directly applicable in the country (MSC) and sector-specific product safety legislation.

Find out more

Guidance on the security regime for consumer connectable products

On 17 March 2025, the Office for Product Safety and Standards and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology published additional guidance for manufacturers, importers and distributors of consumer products that connect to the internet. The updated guidance, which came into effect on 25 February 2025, clarifies which vehicles are exempt from the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 (PSTI) regime. The exempted vehicles include motor vehicles and their trailers; two or three-wheel vehicles and quadricycles; and agricultural vehicles. These categories are already covered by sector-specific legislation that has equivalent cybersecurity requirements as to those envisioned by the PSTI. The regulations came into force on 29 April 2024, setting out security compliance measures for consumer products that connect to the internet or networks.

Find out more

Product regulation

Report on consumer product registration rates published

On 24 March 2025, the OPSS published an independent research report on increasing rates of consumer registration for large domestic appliances. The research, dated September 2023, implemented a trial with manufacturers in order to encourage consumers to register large domestic appliances, via messaging through leaflets and co-branded material. The research and the trial were carried out in order to increase rates of consumer registration to in turn improve the product recall and safety system, allowing manufacturers of to communicate with consumers.

Find out more

EU Design regulation changes coming on 1 May 2025: what businesses need to know

1 May 2025 sees the first in a series of implementations of the long-awaited changes to EU design law. Our recent article outlines key changes and what these mean, including:

The CD Amending Regulation renames the European registered right the 'registered EU design' (REUD), and correspondingly the Community Design Regulation becomes the EU Designs Regulation.
The CD Amending Regulation repeals Fees Regulation (2246/2002).
Under Article 2(3) of the Designs Directive (recast) the REUD is broadened to include dynamic objects, including the movement, transition or animation of the features applicable to the definition of a design at sections 1(1) and (2) RDA 1949 ('the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture or materials of the product itself or its ornamentation' ('ornamentation' now being replaced with 'decoration').
The examples of what is considered a 'product' are broadened to include digital designs, graphic works, symbols, logos, surface patterns and graphical user interfaces.
Changes to infringement provisions will include the right to prohibit "creating, downloading, copying and sharing or distributing to others any medium or software which records the design for the purpose of enabling a product to be made".

The CD Amending Regulation is applicable from 1 May 2025, with some exceptions, and the Designs Directive (recast) must be transposed into national law by December 2027. There is a transitional period that applies to the repair clause that allows existing designs of component parts to remain protected at a national level until December 2032.

Find out more

Product regulation

Updated furniture and furnishings fire safety regulations

OPSS has published new guidance on the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, effective from 30 October 2025.

Key changes include:

Removal of certain baby and young children’s products from the regulations
Elimination of the requirement for display labels on new products
Extension of legal proceedings timeframe from six to twelve months.

Find out more