Customer feedback - April to June 2008

Compilation of general feedback received from customers during the period of April to June 2008. The feedback received is listed in the first column. Read across the row to find out our response and any additional measures taken.
General feedback Response and additional measures taken
You said you wanted to know if you could patent software. We gave you a thorough reply and explained the difficulties in applying for a patent in the UK or the EU to protect computer software and compared it with the stance taken by the US Office.
You said that you had received unofficial looking invoices and you were not sure if you needed to pay them. We contacted you and explained what service these companies were offering and informed you that you did not have to pay the invoices and these invoices had nothing to do with your intellectual property rights.
You said you could not find the text for patents on our website. We contacted you and explained where this infomation could be found using the esp@cenet service, by using the links under our Find Patents heading on our website, or by putting a patent application number in our search engine. Your comments for improvements to this service were also passed onto the web site re-design project to consider.
You wanted to Patent a new game and wanted some advice. We contacted you and advised that the new game/sport that was invented may be patentable especially if it involves unique apparatus. We also gave further information relating to the precautions that needed to be taken prior to filing for a patent.
You requested that your name was removed from our records so this it did not appear on Google searches. We informed you that under Patents Rule 11(1) applicants must request that their names and addresses are kept confidential. No such request was made so the names and addresses on the patent application must remain in the public domain.
You said you filed an electronic trade mark application and you could not insert the full colour description because the field would only accept a restricted number of characters. We thanked you for bringing this issue to our attention and said that the Head of Trade Mark Operations would look into this problem to see if it could be resolved.
You said there was a problem with the way that your trade mark series was displayed in the on-line journal. We explained this was the result of a technical error in this particular journal and has since been corrected.
You said you wanted advice on how to oppose a conflicting trade mark. We contacted you and gave a detailed account of the opposition process, which explained the opposition period and the date when a TM7 would have to be filed.
You said that some of the notification paragraphs were misleading and that there was incorrect wording on the Form TM25. We said that the wording was correct but that we would look at the paragraphs again to see if they could be improved. The wording on the TM25 has been amended following your feedback.
You said that your name and address were incorrectly put on the history text of an application on the IPO website. We said that we had reviewed the appropriate form and it has been re-designed to try and help to avoid this error happening again in the future.
You said you wanted to know the best way to pay for your renewals. We informed you that the easiest way to pay for your renewals was to complete the Patent Form 12 and the FS2 (fees form) with a credit or debit card details and fax it to the IPO.
You said that you were having trouble making sure that you kept the tariffs up to date for the changes in Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) fees and asked whether it was possible to have an alert service that people could sign up to so that they were notified automatically when any fees change? We sent you a link to the PCT Newsletter which gives details of any fee changes; we also said that the UKIPO advertise for approximately 6 weeks in the Patents Designs Journal when there are fee changes. The correct fees can also be found on the UKIPO website.
You said that you were surprised that the IPO had not sent more up to date National Phase entry information to WIPO. We said that the supply of this information was voluntary, although we did accept that it was a valuable source of information for our customers. We are planning to move to an automated system later in 2008, which will mean that this information will automatically be sent to WIPO on a monthly basis.
You said that you had an idea of a format of a new TV Channel and wanted some Copyright advice. We gave you a detailed response to your queries which included having a confidentiality contract in place before presenting your work to others. You were told that a large amount of copyright information was on our website and there was also the option of attending a free monthly copyright workshop run by staff from the IPO.
You said you wanted some information about the copyright exceptions to format shifting consultations You were contacted and given a detailed response to your queries.