| You were unhappy that you had received a letter confirming that your Trade Mark had been examined and would go forward to publication and then upon chasing four months later informed that nothing further had happened on the application. |
We apologised for any inconvenience or distress caused as a result. We agreed to an ex-gratia payment of £500, as a gesture of goodwill, without prejudice and in full and final settlement of this issue. We explained that the examiner in question had set the case ready for advert and then filed the case
in store without fully completing the necessary checks. We explained that the new case file system will
not allow this to happen when it is in place, but in the short term the operations manager will investigate
what additional interim safeguards could be implemented. |
| You advised, "I wish to make a complaint concerning your extortionate increase in Patent Fees. On the 4 of June 2010, I spoke to Denah in Renewals. I was advised that the new fee was £410 till the end of July. There would then be an additional £24 (5.85% Interest) per month! I was advised that in April there was an increase in charges. The old price for 15th Year Renewal would have been £270. The new price has increased by 51.85%! Please be advised that had I known there was an increase before April 2010, I would have paid in advance at the old price. I was under the impression, that having complained to Denah,
someone would come back to me from your Complaints Department and contact me. This never happened. I
have also been away and only had time recently to follow this up. I was advised by Denah that I would
have been notified in writing. I have had no correspondence from you and therefore feel that your massive
price increase aside from being grossly excessive (even if you advise you had not had price increase
for some time), is totally unjustified. You seem more concerned about making excessive charges, than
helping British Inventors who are making a contribution to the Economy! I would therefore like you to
reconsider offering this Patent at the Old Price of £270 and waver all charges if payment is made within
14 days of your notification and prior to Expiry of Patent (6th Months from 17 June 2010). Looking forward
to your prompt reply and thanking for your attention in dealing with this matter." |
We explained the background as to why our renewal fees had increased, told you that the increase in fees was advertised on our website. We told you that we do not have a member of staff called Denah but in the circumstances we would try and address your concerns at the time, escalating to a senior manager if required. If we were unable to resolve we would ask you to send the complaint in writing via a more formal complaint process; we apologised if this was not conveyed to you correctly. Consequently we could only agree to waive the late charges of £72 (if filed before the end of October) as a gesture of goodwill and without prejudice. |
| You were unhappy as an ex partner had registered a Trade mark for your company name in spite and wanted to know what options were open to you to resolve the situation. |
We advised that the only way forward would be file an invalidation request. |
| You advised that you were unhappy with the Patent system and how your application will not proceed. You were having issues with the examiner on your application. On the 13 December 2010 you wrote to raise further objections deal with your case. |
We explained that it was not unusual for an applicant and an examiner to fail to agree over the legal issues on an application and that we encourage you to ask for a hearing if you feel the examiner has not assessed the application correctly. Should you then disagree with the decision of the hearing officer you would be free to appeal to the High Court. We replied on the 19 November 2011 advising that a hearing is the best way forward and a further appeal could be dealt with at the patents court. |
| You were unhappy that you were given a timescale for examination and when this date passed you were then advised of a date in the future. |
We explained that unfortunately we have a backlog of Patent cases awaiting examination. We explained that we examine them in order of the date they were filed so it was unlikely that we would have examined your application before October 2011 and apologised for saying it would be issued by September 2010. We have now arranged for the application to be examined shortly. |
| You advised, "There is a deep misunderstanding between the examiner and I, regarding my patent applications patent fees. The examiner has been very supportive of my application processes, as I was in despair however, I managed to get the application to a standard ready for examination, somehow the examiner is of the opinion that I agreed to a refund for the above applications. I did not. I wrote to him many times stating what I requested i.e. transfer the fees from one application to the new application number. I made amendments to the application before the 9 November deadline. I see no advantage of withdrawing the applications fees at such a time. I need to be assured my requests to re-instate the fees are being met, so I’m letting you know the situation. Please confirm my fees are re-instated, the refund cheque will not be banked. I know I’ve caused confusion regard the applications specifications and I deeply regret any inconvenience, the examiner seems a good man. There should be 3 pending patent applications all paid for." |
This complaint was withdrawn by e-mail on 17 November 2010 as the misunderstanding was resolved. |
| You were unhappy with the name ordering on the certificate and we had changed it. |
We explained that the name order does not have any legal significance but that we will update the system to show the name as requested. We also outlined why renewal fees are due on the fourth anniversary of the application and confirmed that all future correspondence would be address to him instead of the co-applicant in the future. |
| You were unhappy that we had not proceeded with your Trade Mark application despite advising that we would do so if we had not heard from you by 15 September 2010. |
We replied and apologised to you for the poor service provided. We refunded the application fee of £170. We also tightened up our procedures to prevent a reoccurrence. |
| You asked that we keep a good record of your Patent application for a variety of future uses. |
We confirmed that the application was still viewable online and provided the relevant web address as well as instructions on how to access the Patent online. |
| You were unhappy that we had taken 3 years to search and examine your Patent application to confirm that it was not patentable. Now a mobile phone company has adopted your approach and left the concept unprotected and open to infringement. |
We advised that after we searched the Patent within our normal deadline we advised that it would be best if the application was withdrawn as it was not patentable. You continued with the application and filed a Patents Form 10/77 and when we examined it some 20 months later we gave you the same information. On that basis we were unable to provide compensation. |
| You were unhappy because of a charge you had paid to your agent for a novelty search. On the 11 January 2011 you wrote a further letter to us detailing further elements of your application. |
We replied, "Thank you for your letter dated 16 December 2010, in which you raise two issues. Firstly, you ask whether there is a Regulator in relation to patents. Anyone who wishes to make
a formal complaint about the service they have received from the Intellectual Property Office
can write to the Chief Executive. If the response to this complaint is not satisfactory then the complainant can ask their MP
to take up the complaint and our handling of it with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
(the Ombudsman). Similarly, any reputable firm offering intellectual property advice will also have
a complaints procedure. (In the case of patent attorney firms, this is a requirement of the Code of Conduct for Patent and Trade
Mark Attorneys.) If the firm is unable to resolve the complaint then the matter can be referred to the Chartered
Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA)  . If they are unable to resolve the matter, then complaints regarding poor service should be referred
to the Legal Ombudsman whilst complaints about professional misconduct should be passed to the Intellectual
Property Regulation Board (IP Reg) , which has responsibility for regulating the patent attorney
profession. The second issue you raise is whether a Novelty Search Fee paid to a patent attorney in 1996 is recoverable. I understand that this was a fee which you paid to a patent attorney for a particular service offered
by that attorney. I would therefore recommend that in the first instance you should take up any questions regarding this
fee with the firm of attorneys concerned." On the 19 November 2011 we responded "Thank you
for your letter dated 11 January 2011 and received in this office on 17 January 2011. I trust that my letter of 10 January dealt with the points you raised in your earlier letter (dated
16 December 2010). If you wish to discuss technical details of your pending patent application, you
should correspond with the officials dealing with that application (quoting the patent application number
in any correspondence). If you have a separate invention which you feel would benefit from patent protection,
then you will need to file a further patent application." |
| You were unhappy that your case is showing as withdrawn as you had filed the required TM8 upon opposition by a third party. |
We responded by explaining that we have acted within the law and that we were still awaiting proof of postage or the original email regarding the application. |
| You were unhappy with the deadline set on your hearing as you were awaiting a response from the High Court in Northern Ireland. You also claimed that the IPO had not acted in a professional manner in processing their application. |
We responded, "We are sorry you are not happy with the way in which the tribunal section dealt with your case and on review of your case the tribunal section has not treated you and the opponent appropriately and impartially. We advised you to notify the tribunal section of any appeal you wish to make and extension of time requests." |
| You were unhappy that we had advertised the services of a particular firm of Patent and Trade Mark attorneys with a link to their website in our IP Insight magazine. |
We apologised that you thought the amount of information we published about the company was a form of direct marketing and explained the outline of the IP Insight magazine and its purpose. We also offered you to write an article for the magazine in the future. |
