| You said you had visited the office to file your application, paid the correct fees and
handed in your application. Unfortunately the member of staff failed to inform you the application was
not acceptable, as no description had been filed. As a result a refund and a covering letter were sent
to you. |
We told you that the error was not down to procedures, but due to the member of staff not
informing you that the application did not comply with filing requirements. This member of staff will
receive additional training in order to deal more effectively with filing enquiries. |
| You said you phoned on the preparation for publication completion date (PPC date) to request
that your patent application was withdrawn from publication. It was explained to you that it was too late to prevent publication of the application. You wrote in
explaining the reasons for the late request and were then sent
a letter explaining
the legal reasons for not being able to prevent publication. |
We telephoned you to explain the situation, that the correct procedure had been followed
and that the law allowed no discretion to allow a late request for withdrawal to prevent publication
of the application. |
| You said that you wanted a different examiner to deal with your application, because you
disagreed with the decisions that they had taken on your patent. |
We contacted you and informed you that a different examiner was now dealing with your patent.
You said that you would be writing to the CEO about this issue. |
| You said you applied for a mark that contained two logos. You were contacted by New Applications
staff to query the two logos and they said that the application would be acceptable as a series of 2
marks. When the application was examined, the examiner raised a series objection against the application. |
We explained that the New Applications member of staff was advising with your best interest
at heart as they believed that in applying for one mark, you were restricting your rights Although you
were disappointed you said that you had spoken to the examiner and they had given you excellent advice
and were very helpful and you couldn't speak more highly of them. |
| You said that following a hearing and after some research you now realised that your mark
was unacceptable. You felt that the service was very poor value for money and contrasted it with the
patent application process where you received an initial report prior to paying the full fee. You requested
a refund of your application fee. |
We asked you to put your complaint in writing, together with a request for a refund of your
examination fees. Then following a full investigation of the complaint, you would receive a comprehensive
response from the office. |
| You said that the 2 month deadline for response to examination issues, as far as international
designations were concerned, was inadequate. In some cases it took almost 2 months for various correspondence to get to you. |
We thanked you for your feedback and said we would pass it on. Also the case was reverted to "Examined" and you were granted an EOT because of these particular
circumstances. |
| You said you wanted us to discuss your trade mark with you even though you were employing
an agent. You were also unhappy with the notification letter that you received and did not think that
you should be expected to pay extra
fees in order to
divide your series application. |
We explained that we do not normally deal with the customer if they have an agent. If you
wanted to deal with the application on your own you should tell us in writing that you have dispensed
with the agent’s services. The notification system was explained and you were told about the opposition
process if you decided to continue to progress your application. The reason for the division fees was
also explained
to you. |
| You said you fax filed a TM7 and also electronically filed 3 trade mark applications on
the same day. You were unhappy to find out that the TM7 had not been actioned because there were insufficient
funds in the in your deposit account. |
We informed you that our Deposit Account Terns and conditions state that we “will debit
your account in the order that we successfully process fee sheets, orders and other debits”. Additionally
the account holder is responsible for ensuring that sufficient funds are available in their deposit
accounts at all times. In this case it was unfortunate that the fees for the trade mark applications
were taken from the deposit account
first and this meant that there were insufficient fees left to cover the fees for the TM7. |
| You said you were unhappy about a recent article contained in the latest Insight Newsletter
headed "Claim your rights". You thought that we should have warned our readers that it was
an offence to issue "Groundless threats" of infringement. If someone who felt they had a grievance
started issuing warning letters as we suggested, without getting professional advice first, they would
be sued themselves. |
We have received a number of pieces of feedback on this particular article and are in the
process of drafting another article to respond to this feedback. |
| You said you were concerned about the thoroughness of a search because no new documents
relevant to the validity of your patent were found. |
We investigated this issue and there was no evidence of short comings in the search performed.
An amended report was however issued which included the next closest prior art to demonstrate the search
was correct in approach. |
| You said you had difficulty finding the online patent filing link. The link was at the bottom
of the page and was not easy to spot. You suggested that there should be a link to it from the Home
page. |
We informed you that we were reviewing and improving our website, to make popular services
like the patent online service more visible. While we could not guarantee that there would be a link
from the home page, your comments would be passed onto the web site re-design team for their consideration. |
