The UK's top law firms have rushed to assemble working parties to respond to last week's Government announcement that it is launching a sweeping review of the UK's patent regime.

Several major firms, including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer,Clif-ford Chance (CC) and Allen & Overy have told Legal Week they have or are likely to be setting up groups to liaise with clients and respond to the long-awaited consultation.

The initiative, which will be headed by former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers, was announced by the Treasury on 2 December in what marks the first-ever comprehensive review of IP rights in the UK.

It will assess the way in which the Government administers and awards IP rights, how well businesses are able to deal with the complexity and cost of the current system and whether the framework reflects the digital age.

The review will be watched closely by IP lawyers who have long argued that the high cost of the UK courts and the difficulty of enforcing patents across the European Union (EU) are driving work abroad.

Concerns over Europe's IP regime were underlined last month after a group of top lawyers and judges got together to campaign for patent reform ( Legal Week,3 November).

Lawyers are expecting the high costs of the UK courts to be one of the main focuses of the review.

Herbert Smith IP partner Andrew Rich said: "The UK system is significantly more expensive and arguably prevents small and medium enterprises from protecting IP rights, as they cannot afford to do so. The review may be able to look at reducing the cost of litigation."

CC IP partner Vanessa Marsland said: "The Government recognises the importance of IP in the UK and wants to see if it is servicing business well. [However] there is limited scope to change areas of law as much of it governed by [EU] international treaties.

She added: "It will be interesting to see to what extent the Government is trying to push the EU agenda."

Gowers is due to report back to the Government in autumn 2006.