Customer feedback - October to December 2008

Compilation of formal complaints made by our customers during the period of October to December 2008. The complaint received is listed in the first column. Read across the row to find out our response and any additional measures taken.
Formal complaints Response and additional measures taken
You were unhappy that a contact name was missing from the correspondence you received from the office. There was also a discrepancy in the notification concerning payment of fees on your PCT application. We apologised for the omission of a contact name on our letter. A note had been issued to relevant staff about the importance of signing official correspondence. We said we would pass on your suggestions for improvements to PCT procedures to WIPO.
You were unhappy as you felt you had not been given an explanation why your patent was not granted. We upheld the refusal to grant your patent. We explained we were not suggesting that the concept had been used before but that if failed other important requirements. The Hearing Officer had given you the option to extend the deadline to seek a patent however, you had not done this.
You were unhappy that the caveat system had failed and some Trade Marks were erroneously allowed to proceed to publication. We explained the way the caveat system should work and apologized for the poor service you had received in this instance.
You were unhappy that your Trade Mark could not be returned to registered status. We explained that a combination of an IT error and the late registration of the mark led to the failure to issue a reminder of renewal. We apologized for our error, you paid the renewal fee and the mark was successfully renewed.
You were concerned about aspects of the exam and registration process and the resulting financial burden on small businesses when defending IP rights. We explained that we apply a rigorous Trade Mark examination process but with thousands of applications each year there are rare occasions when marks have been accepted and registered incorrectly. If this is the case the mark can be removed through a legal procedure called invalidation.

The law also provides for registrations to be removed if they are not in use, this is known as revocation.

Finally, a proprietor can limit Trade Mark registration by submitting a TM23 form and goods and service will be removed.

We appreciate that the customer feels it is unfair that small business may have to bear the expense of defending registration but the process has been provided by parliament. The law tries to strike a balance between the interests of earlier rights holders, later ones and consumers. The office provides information on this on its website.