| The complaint was about refusing to provide information under the FOI. |
We maintained we are still unable to provide the information under the FOI as required and advised the applicant that he can appeal directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office within 2 months of the date of our letter. |
| The customer was unhappy with the hearing officer’s decision in 2006 and also the high court's decision with regards to an appeal. |
We maintained that there is nothing further we can do and have to take the High Court’s decision as final. |
| Said, "We sent to you a detailed breakdown of how our product works, a brochure, and a copy of an invoice for our product when the above patent was at its application stage, hoping that this would be sufficient to inform the examiner that our product might fall under this patent should it be published.
The patent has since been granted, and we find ourselves unable to market our product because of fear
of being in breach of the patent. I have discussed this today with the examiner who informed me that
at the time of application, he thought that there was not enough information from us to claim prior
art, and that he stated that the process does not call for him to solicit further information from us
to establish these facts. (I did follow your guidelines on your website for providing adequate information). I did state in my
letter at the time, that I could bring our product to you to explain it’s detailed workings, however
we did not receive any communication from yourselves. I understand there is an opinion route, but is costly to us, but moreover, I am disappointed that we
find ourselves in this position through no fault of our own. I also understand that the technical breakdown
of how our product works was sent to the company making the application, which gives them our design
principles, which bearing in mind they are a competitor of ours is alarming for several reasons, perhaps
I am naive in not understanding this might happen. I attach a copy of the email conversation with the
original letter attached for your reference. I hasten to add that the examiner was extremely helpful
and attentive to my concerns, and I realize that I may have unwittingly become a victim of the process’s,
but I hope you can inform me if I have a right to appeal this without pursuing the costly opinions route
as I felt I provided enough evidence at the time, and the process did not allow the examiner to contact
me for me information." |
We confirmed that we had not dealt with this correctly and made the applicant aware of the various routes he could now take with his product. A further e-mail received from the customer dated 29/01/2010 stated, "Please can I thank you for your letter and express my appreciation for your detailed explanations and suggestions. I am considering these points and will decide on the appropriate action in due course." |
| The query related to the printing of the colouring of figures and the grant certificate. |
We confirmed that the abstract and drawing is not published as a B spec and agreed to republish with the better drawings (but not in colour) in a C spec and also explained that all the drawings were published at B stage so it may have been a technical issue with esp@cenet. |
| Claimed, "Patent not searched properly." |
We searched the case incorrectly; the case will be re-searched accordingly. |
| Stated, "I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with the services provided by the IPO in regard to my application for a Trade Mark. Whilst I am prepared to accept the judgement I received regarding the mark (my application was rejected), I am not prepared to accept that the services I received from your office are anywhere near acceptable, and would like to request a refund of the £200 fee paid. On three distinct occasions during the application procedure I was given incorrect and misleading advice by officers of the IPO and this caused not only confusion and frustration on my part, but it also raised my hopes and expectations of having my application accepted when, in fact, it was ultimately rejected. On 21st January 2010, I had an ex parte hearing to consider the case for my application. During the discussion he apologised three times for the misleading information I received and agreed that this had in no way been helpful for my application. The most serious of these errors was the offer of granting the Trade Mark in a different class to the one being considered, made to me in writing by a previous officer. Once my initial application was rejected, I reminded him of the previous offer and asked if it were still valid, and he informed me that it was misinformation and had never been valid. Whilst I appreciate that the fee paid is for the services of the IPO to inspect and make judgments on my application, I do not accept that the services received have been even close to worthy of the fee paid. Therefore I request a refund and, ideally, an apology for the way my case has been handled. I made this request for a refund, but he has written to me today to inform me that this is not possible. I do not accept this conclusion, and ask that you examine my complaint and decide accordingly." |
We accepted that the case had been mishandled and gave an ex gratia payment of £200 representing the application fee and we will investigate the matter further and feedback to the relevant staff members. |
| Told us, "Unhappy with decision on case." |
We wrote back to advise that we have noted the comments but we have nothing further to add. |
| Provided a, "Complaint regarding the use of Microsoft products and the fact that the terms of their licence mean they collect information about their users and track their activities." |
We advised that there is no evidence to suggest such companies are collecting information and we take every precaution to ensure the confidentiality and safety of our data. |
| Confirmed, "Unhappy that his patent application did not continue and wants a refund of all costs involved." |
We were unable to comment on further on this case due to the court’s decision. |
| Stated, "Unhappy that his Trade Mark application did not proceed and subsequent poor customer service he received." |
We agreed that the case had been handled incorrectly and issued an ex gratia payment of £170 (being the original application fee) and advised that the head of Trade Marks would contact the customer to discuss why the application had not been successful. |
| Advised, "On two occasions I have applied for a trademark after your online search in both cases revealed that "No Trade Marks matching your search criteria were found." I entered the term. There were no matches and so I went ahead and put in an application. The examination report came back to let me know that there was a match. The other time I entered the term. I also checked the term. There were no matches and so I again went ahead and applied. The examination report discovered my term. I hope you can imagine my frustration and anger at both these situations. When I went back and searched
my term not only did the singular version appear but also my application in the plural appeared. It
is extraordinary that the plural will appear on a singular search but the singular doesn't appear when
you type in the plural. At no time during my search did any warnings appear suggesting I explore the
singular or the plural or that I should search for these marks as single words. If they had then I would
have done so. Without these warnings a user would naturally assume the search engine would take these
variables into account. Especially when my term searched in the singular produced obscure results such
as "IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN”!!! This business has cost me a great deal of money as each time
I have also purchased the necessary domain names believing these Trade Marks to be available. I have
also spent additional time and money implementing initial graphic design work. I do hope you can see
my frustration and can recompense me in this situation. Could you please implement my suggestion of
warnings to users to include single word searches and the singular version of the words being used and
any other variables that you might know of?" |
We confirmed that the search facility would have resulted in the errors given, we agreed to change the search help given online and also agreed to reimburse the application fees for both applications. |
| (1) Your web site www.ipo.gov.uk contains PDF (portable document format) files of two different types. One type is universally readable (meaning that type of PDF file can be read by all versions of PDF reading software). The other type is NOT readable by all PDF reading software (meaning only the latest versions of PDF reading software can open the file and see the contents). (2) The IPO's non-universally readable PDF files can be read by people using the latest Microsoft operating systems. (3) I believe it is unreasonable for the IPO to publish information in a format that restricts the public's access to public information. (4) I therefore want the IPO to create all its PDF files in a PDF format that is universally readable. (5) I use Windows 98SE by choice. Adobe offer a free copy of the latest version of their PDF reading software but it is incompatible with Windows 98SE. To read the IPO's non-universally readable PDF files, I would have to spend money changing my computer system, spend considerable time and effort disrupting a perfectly good and usable computer system to upgrade to the latest version of Windows or to another computer operating system. All that just to read a IPO document containing public information. (6) I encountered a similar problem on the DEFRA web site. When I complained, their staff quickly made all their PDF files backward compatible thus enabling them to be universally readable by any person using any version of any PDF reading software. (7) The PDF document which alerted me to the problem was 'Applying to register a trade mark (pdf 1012Kb)' on web page http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-applying/t-before/t-already.htm. The document's location is: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmapply.pdf I cannot read that document with my version
of Adobe PDF reader. When I try, I receive an error message the file cannot be repaired. (8) Conversely I can read IPO PDF
document 'Standard fee sheet including fax filing' on web page http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-formsfees.htm.
The document's location is: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/fs2.pdf. (9) The existence of universally readable
PDF files on the IPO web site means the IPO possesses the capability and ability to create universally
readable PDF files. (10) I would like the IPO to ensure all its PDF files are universally readable.
(11) I feel strongly about the public's right of access to information intended for public consumption
and am prepared to seek a judicial review if the IPO fails to comply within a reasonable time with my
modest, sensible, reasonable, proportionate and lawful request for universally readable information
published on its web site. For instance as universally readable PDF files or HTML web pages. |
We confirmed that we do wish to have all PDF files in an accessible format and we will look to get this resolved as soon as possible. In the interim if the customer has any issues with any other specific documents he can contact us and we can convert them for him accordingly. |
| I am absolutely livid at you publishing my home details on the internet. I safeguard my privacy very carefully and yet you simply publish it without my knowledge nor consent. I require the immediate removal of all my personal details as you have published them below and do not ever wish to see my address published on the web. I have never knowingly consented to you giving out my details other than the design details and my name and am really annoyed at what I can only describe as abuse of my personal information. Kindly remove immediately or I will be taking legal advice as I believe data protection is being breached and you are placing my security at risk. |
We advised the reasons why we need an address on the website and advised the customer that he could change them to a PO box address. |
| Stated "Having tried by all means to resolve this issue with the case manager without getting nowhere, I have decided to make this next step to see if we can resolve it at this level. I put in an application for Trade Mark, and on the second working day I called back, to see if I can make changes. I was assured that it was possible as no one has started any work on the job, and the only problem I will experience is that the day I resubmitted the amendment is when the job will start (meaning I will wait ten days starting from day of resubmission). I believe the agency was looking for was to cover their blunders to the extent of asking to see my amendment first before they make a decision. I feel they have disregarded what assurance they gave me when I rang through to make amendments but instead hiding behind some constitution that I was quoted when I rang to make changes." |
We agreed that we had not dealt with this correctly and offered the customer a refund of £220, which is the same as the application fee he originally filed. We also arranged for a senior manager to contact the customer to assist with making any further application. |
| Customer unhappy that they have to pay the extra £50 to renew their Trade Mark due to an error within the office. |
We refused the request to waive the fee as the onus is on the applicant to file the fee in time. |
| Confirmed, "I wrote to Chief Executive of the Intellectual Property Office on the 7th December appealing against the decision not to make public the confidential submissions for the report 'The Way Ahead'; A Strategy for Copyright in the Digital Age'. I have attached a copy of that letter to this email. I have not yet had the courtesy of an acknowledgement. Can you confirm that the Chief Executive has received this letter and when I may expect a reply to my letter?" |
We responded with partial information provided but we maintained the initial section 40 and section 41 decisions as valid after a review. |
