Customer feedback - April to June 2006

Informal complaint	Response and additional measures taken
Compilation of informal complaints made by our customers during the period of April to June 2006. The complaint received is listed in the first column. Read across the row to find out our response and any additional measures taken.
A misread email was the cause of an error in an instruction to carry out an existing search strategy rather than provide a quote which was requested.	We apologised to the client by phone and email. The client was content with the data as supplied.
A Private Applicant wrote to the Office with a complaint about the delay in the progress of his application for a patent, complaining that it was two months before he was told that his application was invalid because the drawings were not annotated correctly. He further commented that he should have been told immediately of the invalidity of the patent and questioned the confidentiality of the contents of his application.	We replied to the customer stating that the Office had a target for issuing reports within one month of filing. An apology was issued to the customer for the delay explaining that there was an unusually large amount of casework being handled by the Private Applicants Unit. The client was reassured of the confidentiality of his application and it was explained to him that every Patent Office employee was required to sign the Official Secrets Act.
A customer feedback form was sent to a company inviting their comments on the service they had received from the Search and Advisory Service (SAS). They returned it indicating that the search completed by SAS had not met their required needs.	We consider the search report answered all four questions posed in the request. Nonetheless, the fact that the company in question felt dissatisfied indicates that we could have handled the request better. A letter to that effect was issued and SAS examiners have been reminded of the need to clarify search requirements prior to undertaking any work.
A Patent Attorney rang a Divisional Director stating that he was not satisfied with the arrangements for a hearing of one of his cases. Secondly he was unhappy that fresh issues had been raised after the case had been referred for a hearing. Thirdly, he was concerned that it was now difficult to do much about the fresh issues of the rule 34 period. Finally, he felt the Office generally took too tough a stance on patentability.	The Divisional Director explained that he had ordered the arrangements himself as in their last letter the Patent Attorney had referred to “the objections raised by the hearing officer” and he was worried about the implication that the hearing officer might have prejudged issues. On the second point, concern had been raised about two or three similar instances recently, and therefore new procedures had been instituted to minimise the risk of this happening in future. On the third point the Divisional Director had been concerned at the number of cases not going to a hearing until very late in the day and had recently instructed examiners to get these cases to a hearing more quickly, well before the end of the rule 34 period. It was decided that it was inappropriate to discuss the last point whilst he had a case awaiting a hearing.
A Patent Agent was alerted by the Publication Liaison Officer in formalities that an error had occurred in the processing of an application. The agent had faxed a letter requesting withdrawal of the application which was received in time to prevent publication. The correct procedure was not followed; the letter was misplaced within the formalities unit and not actioned. The application was therefore published. The agent expressed his disappointment that this had happened.	The error was identified by the formalities officer and the agent was notified straightaway. A letter of apology was sent explaining that, due to human error, the letter had not been dealt with correctly. All managers in the formalities units have been reminded to be vigilant regarding procedures for handling withdrawal letters especially during times of staff changes and shortages.
A customer complained about an incident in which a citation number had been mis-quoted.	In the reply, it was explained that there was no question that the examiner had made an error in the search report, and immediately after it was discovered, a corrected search report was sent out. An apology was offered for the difficulties caused by the error in the citation number.
The Chief Executive received an e-mail complaining that a Trade Marks Examiner had failed to raise a similar earlier filed trade mark as an objection to the trade mark she was applying for. The client only became aware of this other trade mark when the owner of the earlier trade mark threatened to oppose her trade mark, if she did not agree to withdraw it. Failure to raise this objection in her examination report has meant that she has incurred additional legal expenses. If she had been made aware of this other trade mark earlier, at least she would have had the option of either proceeding or withdrawing at that point and saving herself these additional legal expenses.	The Chief Executive replied by explaining in length what the Trade Marks Opposition process involved. Once a trade mark was published then any other party had the opportunity to oppose a trade mark if they wanted to. The applicant was informed that their mark had been opposed; she had to decide whether or not to contest the opposition or withdraw the trade mark. The Chief Executive has explained that, as the applicant’s trade mark is now subject to legal proceedings before the Registry, it would be improper for him to comment until these proceedings have been concluded. Once the proceedings have been concluded the Chief Executive said that they would be prepared to look at the applicant’s concerns.
In his letter to the Chief Executive, a customer complained that his new address details had not been updated on all his patent applications.	A reply was sent to the customer explaining that we had made an error by using 2 different databases, and that is where the error occurred. He was also informed that steps have been taken to initialise a new centralised database. The Customer Accounts Team will check appropriate statutory forms, asking for address changes and update Oracle at the same time.
A customer complained that he had not received a filing receipt for his patent application.	An apology was issued and a duplicate filing receipt was issued.
A customer complained about the level of fees charged by his agent for patent renewals and that he could not pay in advance for a number of years.	We explained that we had no control over the fees charged by agents for their services, but that he could choose to pay us direct if he wished. We also explained that the law did not allow for advance payments.
An applicant complained that a request for a change of name on a European Patent Application filed in 2002 had been actioned incorrectly, recording the wrong joint proprietor against his client’s patent.	We corrected the error and apologised for our mistake, which had been the result of human error when processing the form 20/77. The original error occurred in 2002. Existing staff in the Register Admin Section have been reminded of the need to take extra care when processing requests for a change of name with joint proprietors.