Customer feedback - January to March 2011

Compilation of general feedback received from customers during the period of January to March 2011. 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 advised, "That our phone number is not on our home page and you found this annoying. You also pointed out that you had first of all called the Copyright Licensing Agency as was not aware of our number. The lady at the CLA told you that she was always giving out our number to people who ring CLA looking for us. You also said that you were told people had difficulty finding our number." We replied, "We do display our contact details deeper within the site but we hope the website contains enough relevant information to lessen the burden on our call centre, (which in turn helps us adhere to central government policy i.e. increasing the availability of electronic information and improving web services whilst in turn reducing cost of call centres). It is too difficult for us to track third parties who customers may be involved with and we do not ensure third parties have or pass on our contact details."
You told us, "Having successfully previously applied for a Patent in 2001, before the current large usage of e-applications, I recall along with the Patent application forms sent to me by post from your office, a very helpful example of a Patent application (a demountable trailer), including drawings and also especially text for each part of the application (claims etc). This proved extremely helpful in my own Patent application in terms of correct phrasing of the wording. My query is; is there a similar example page somewhere on your website? If not, then I would suggest you consider having one along the lines just described. I am sure this would speed up the efficiency and flow of correctly filled-out Patent applications through your office." A reply was sent to you on the 7 February 2011 which said "There is an example Patent specification in our Patent application guide PDF document(2.04Mb) please see pages 14 to 21. I hope they are of use to you. There isn't a similar example page anywhere on our website though in light of your comments we will consider making the link to this guide or something similar more prominent for users. If you require any further help you could speak also to one of our dedicated IP advisors on 0300 300 2000 (office hours are 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday) or e-mail information"
You said, "Too long & currently overrunning for an evening event." Your feedback was forwarded on to our marketing team for information purposes.
You said, "I have searched the IPO website but I cannot find an indication as to whether or not it is necessary for our, or any, website to have a Copyright (c), company name 2008-2011 statement on it and update it yearly. However, many websites do, including our own although not necessarily updated to the current year. I asked your info email and ultimately received confirmation that this is what IPO would recommend. Please could you add this to your FAQs, to help other people with this question." We replied, "Thank-you for your comments in relation to adding information into our FAQ pages in particular advice on the statement "Copyright (c) [company name] 2008-2011". Colleagues who are responsible for the copyright section of the website are currently in the process of reviewing these web pages and they will take your suggestion into consideration during this review."
You told us, "PPL Licence. Your self-congratulatory press release gives no details as to how the PPL fee will be calculated, or who will receive the money. Please supply precise details, so that I can inform the hall management committee. We received no information about this proposal as part of your "consultation" procedure." We explained, "The IPO alerted various representative bodies to the proposed changes and also placed the relevant documents on our website. Also explaining the law regarding this."
You told us, "So much information delivered too fast. A larger workshop would have been easier." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You said, "I am sorry, but the website is difficult to navigate, I wasn't quite sure which form I need to file in and when". We replied, "Thank you for your recent comments on the Intellectual Property Office website. I was sorry to read that you found our site difficult to navigate, we try and make the users journey a clear and simple one though with the mass of varied information available and users having different tasks and goals it is not always easy. You mentioned you were unsure of what form you needed, we do have a dedicated information centre who would be happy to help you. Their contact details are: Tel - 0300 300 2000 (hours 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday) or you can e-mail information. Sorry again you didn't find what you were looking for."
You told us, "Your guidance booklet is really good. Why is it buried in a list on the right of the web screen. I didn't even see it until I was pointed to it. Seems a missed opportunity. Could be a clear enlarged click link as first starting point." We replied, "Thank you for your recent feedback in relation to our website. Firstly I am sorry you didn't see the booklets in the right hand boxes. I'm not sure if this had been flagged up as an issue before so many thanks for raising it. I'll continue to monitor our feedback in relation to the position of the these booklets and other documents and if it continues to be an issue we will look to redesign the page to make these hopefully useful publications more prominent and act as you say as a first starting point."
You advised, "Well presented, but unfortunately too much information to really cover in half a day introduction. Either reduce the depth a little, split into a couple of events covering different topics, or change to whole day." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You said, "If I had any comment to make and it doesn't relate to the research page at all, it is that the IP Home and IP Professional pages could be flagged more obviously and perhaps delineated with a different look and feel between the two, as it is not quite as intuitive and obvious as it might be. This however is a small point on an extremely helpful and useful site". We replied, "Within your recent e-mail in relation to the IPO research web page. You also mentioned the IP Home/Professional pages could be slightly different as it's not obvious where you are. Even though you say it's a minor point we do like to try and cover off all customer comments. Firstly thanks for your suggestion, this is the first time since the professional pages went live that anyone has mentioned this. When the area was put together heavy user testing requested the addition of the orange tab as a simply visual indicator to help users identify where they were but nothing else was suggested. It is important to us to still retain the professional quick access layout and the IPO brand throughout but that said I'll certainly continue to carefully monitor the feedback we receive and consider alternatives if this appears to be an issue."
You told us, "I found it very difficult to find a direct reference (or heading) to the Sales branch. So that my desire to order a copy of a Patent specification took many minutes instead of just two or three." We told you, "We are sorry you found it difficult to find a direct reference to our Sales branch. When the site was designed a direct Sales branch heading was not used as we thought customers may not understand this term hence it being under publications. I am not aware of this being raised as an issue before and if this is raised again I will look to change this."
You told us, "I am concerned about the immense bias to copyright holders given by the Digital Economy Act, and would like to put forward a few suggestions for refining copyright laws in the UK: 1) Limit copyright to 20 years, but make the copyright automatic. We do not need '95 years, or life of creator +70 years, in case of death. 2) Much harsher punishments for Copyright fraud, with revocation of all currently held copyrights being a valid possibility for the final punishment. 3) A notice-and-counter notice system for the first stage of dealing with copyright issues. All of the above should solve the issue of current law in two ways: a) Refining the enforcement of copyrights to those who actually hold it, and preventing situations like that of ACS: Law with regards to The Hurt Locker. b) Making Copyright more balanced towards consumers, instead of being solely for corporate interests - if content is overvaluing its content then free-market principles should resolve the situation. Instead, we have a cultural oligarchy." We thanked you for your feedback which has been forwarded on to the IP Review team. We have recorded the details you have provided and these will be carefully considered along with other submissions made to the review.
You told us, "My suggestion is to have information on who one should address a cover letter to when writing each of the departments especially for specific matters already in progress. Other than that, I love this website it is truly professional. It strikes a great balance between the efficiency of digital and having a personalised service. Well Done." We replied, "Thank-you for your feedback on our website, I was very pleased to read you think the website works reasonably well. As far as your suggestion in relation to having a clearer identifier for addressing letters, thanks your idea is a good one. We did consider when designing the site providing names of who does what etc however we decided not to name individuals as it's not always the most effective way of delaying with incoming letters, calls and e-mails and issues arise in case of absence for instance, instead we encourage customers to go through our dedicated information centre team who are happy to help with all types of queries. Their contact details if you ever need them are: Tel - 0300 300 2000 (hours 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday) or you can e-mail information That said for specific matters already in progress I'm sure there is something more specific that can be done and I'll consider some options in light of your helpful suggestion."
You said, "I do not want to allow the Government to close you in Newport down. I will be writing to the Government and No 10." No response required - feedback logged accordingly.
You told us, "I received advice from the IPO call centre & I don't believe some advice was correct." Copy of this form was past to Information Centre for action.
You told us, "Adding time for questions, discussions after and during sessions." Your feedback was forwarded on to our marketing team for information purposes.
You told us, "You couldn't obtain our phone number as you were asking for the Patent Office but directory enquiries did not find us. They gave him the number for Withers & Rogers who gave him our number! Customer suggested we should put Patent Office with our name IPO so customers can find us. I was unable to find you on the internet either." We replied, "Thank you for your recent feedback on our website I am sorry to hear finding us has caused you difficulties. We changed our name back in December 2008 from the Patent Office to the Intellectual Property Office as it better encompasses our range of services and any contact details should of been readily available from the major directory services and when entering Patents or Intellectual Property. In most search engines we should be top or at least near the top of the list due to tagging of key words (it seems to do this when I just tested it in Google for instance) but I'll investigate and ensure our key search terms keep the reference to the office high in the list. For future reference - our website is www.ipo.gov.uk Our information centre details are - 0300 300 2000 or e-mail information. Our office hours are 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday, excluding Bank Holidays. By post: Intellectual Property Office, Concept House, Cardiff Road, Newport, South Wales, NP10 8QQ, United Kingdom. Hope this helps and sorry again to have caused you any inconvenience."
You advised, "Free parking option maybe." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You told us, "Would like to have heard more from the IPO in their presentation." Your feedback was forwarded on to our marketing team for information purposes.
You said, "Could have spent more time on the Patent application process and how to avoid pitfalls." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You told us, "I bet there is more than they had time to discuss today." Your feedback was forwarded on to our marketing team for information purposes.
You told us, "Very good speakers. Would have been nice to have a bit more time after each one to ask questions. Very valuable after each one to ask questions. Very valuable to have events like for free and it would be a real shame if this was cut. Free face-to-face advice is invaluable. (Would have been nice to start a bit later for people travelling long distances). Thank you for a very useful day." Your feedback was forwarded on to our marketing team for information purposes.
You told us, "There should be some warnings of the dangers of the Patent system not to see NDAS as more than a gentleman's. Agreement except to allow patent acquirement. The danger being a Patent may require huge funding to defend e.g. Apple counter Patents (whether valid or not). Telling the timing of Patent release correct info on how to increase your chances of getting a Patent granted before applying would be good (dated evidence of your plan)." We advised, "We answered your question on the day of the event."
You informed us, "I had to travel to Newport to see family this weekend, so called in to see an IP Advisor who was very helpful. However, I noticed we could not use the on-line terminal in reception because it was not working, this happened last year when I called. If it has been discontinued for use by members of the public this would be a useful tool lost. I currently have (I think) 46 outstanding IP documents filed over 20 years and it would be good to cross check when in the building if this can be done when next in Newport at the IP office." We said, "I'm sorry that you've visited the office and were unable to use our facilities. I've raised the problem with our IT Helpdesk, who have now resolved the issue. If you have any more queries, please do not hesitate to contact me."
You told us, "Some of your slides are too busy and therefore difficult to read in the handouts." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You informed us, "I think too much time was spent on searching. It could have been condensed to 1or even 1/2 a day. I would have liked more time to be spent on building brand value and the valuation of IP which are difficult areas but rushed through. It was an area of particular interest to me and why I came on the course but it went over my head a bit and I don't feel I therefore learnt much." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You said, "More on how examiner searches and why rather than just the mechanics. More on overseas aspects-challenges of products/services. IP protection or lack of in overseas markets strategies for dealing with this." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You told us, "Possibly venue." Your feedback was forwarded on to the marketing team for information purposes.
You had applied on line using Safari but were unable to view downloaded pdf files, they just opened showing nothing but code. We spoke to you and explained that there was an issue on our side with regards to how the documents were presented to customers using Safari and that this is going to be looked at. We also advised that there was an ongoing issue with Safari and PDF documents but that right clicking on the document and saving it will then open it. Your main concern was that we would be able to see the documents filed with no issues. We confirmed that we could see the documents.
You told us, "I have filed on line previously successfully once some years ago, but gave up on the complexity; the present worked fine, other than I was not able to differentiate between single documents and multiple documents. Pardon my intrusion but would it not be better for applicants to filed docs individually as a simple check to themselves while they file?" We replied, "Thank you for your e mail about the Patents web filing service. We receive quite a lot of feedback about the requirement to file either single document or multiple document attachments; some are in favour of filing single document attachments and others, like you, would prefer to file attachments as separate documents. We currently provide both options, but with one important exception. When we designed the system we understood that some customers use different software to produce the drawings from the software that they use to produce the text, so we do require the drawings to always be filed as a separate document. As a consequence we designed our internal systems to expect a separate document for the drawings as this helped us to ensure the internal processing of applications was as efficient as possible. Thank you again for taking the time to write to us with your suggestions it is always good to receive feedback as it helps us to understand how the services are used and identify ways in which they can be improved in future."
You said, "I have just submitted a Patent application, but I was unable to attach the application itself as an attachment to an email, and I was uncertain, at the end of the process, that the application and the drawings had all been correctly attached. It would have been good if there had been a way of verifying this. I was able to get form 1, the receipt of payment etc, but not (as far as I could see) the documents which I really want to be certain that you have received in full." We said, "You have the option at the confirmation stage (step 14) to receive the forms generated from the filing process (eg. Form 1, Form 9a) to enable you to retain copies for your files. As the documents you are sending are already held on your computer, then we do not send them back to you once you have submitted them to us. However you are able to check which documents you are attaching at step 13 (Summary screen under specification documents) by selecting the pdf icon to the left of the document called specification document. We have checked your application and you submitted 2 pages of description, 2 pages of claims and 1 page of abstract."
You commented, "Adding files was slightly confusing, it would have helped to have file sizes, layout of files information on the right hand side of web page, the guideline section. It was reasonably straight forward otherwise thanks" We replied, "Thank you for your e mail about the Patents web filing service and for your suggestions about how to improve the part of the service where you add files. I am sorry that you found this part of the service confusing. We are always pleased to receive feedback from customers as it helps us to understand any problems that there may be with the usability of the service. Although we cannot change the service to reflect all the suggestions we receive, we do take them into account when we next get the opportunity to review the operation of the service. Thank you again for taking the time to contact us, it is much appreciated."
You told us, "We could send e-mail reminders for renewals." We made a note of your suggestion for future reference.
You said, "When going through your application for a Patent it would be helpful to have a direct link to other forms that may be required during the filing of information, for instance I had to pull out of filling form to find form 9a." We said, "The web filing process you refer to is designed to create the forms for you as you proceed through the application process. You initially provide your name and address details (this helps to fill the Form 1), then you add any inventor details (Form 7), do you wish to pay for a search (Form 9) and examination (Form 10) and then you attach the relevant specification and any drawings before you come to the summary stage and then payment (if applicable). It is advisable to read the Patent process prior to making a first filing and that information is available in the Patent application guide PDF document(2.04Mb). The web filing process has enough scope to allow you to file all the necessary forms as described above to secure a filing date."
You said, "I took legal advice before using this service, though cost of employing a lawyer to submit the full application was prohibitive, given the scale involved. The online service I found generally excellent - very smooth and quick. There were a few small questions in the process that almost came out of nowhere that caused me to stop the whole process and open a few more browsers to look terms up. I think being a novice to this process, though having some legal background; a single document or webpage setting out every question one would be asked during the application process would have been beneficial at the start. Because there was no save facility, after committing several hours to the application, I dare not stop when the question about 'divisions' came up! On the whole an excellent process though. Could have been a whole lot worse. Thanks." We replied, "Thank you for your e mail about the Patents web filing service and for your suggestion about improving our help screen. I am sorry that you found this part of the service lacking. We are always pleased to receive feedback from customers as it helps us to understand any problems that there may be with the usability of the service. Although we cannot change the service to reflect all the suggestions we receive, we do take them into account when we next get the opportunity to review the operation of the service. Thank you again for taking the time to contact us, it is much appreciated."
You said, "Is the UKIPO planning on extending their on line services? We feel it would be a great asset if this service was extended to include. Filing a response to an official letter or examination report. Filing a request for an extension of time. Filing formal drawings. Requesting a certified copy of an earlier UK application when required for foreign filings. Filing a F51/77 or letter to request an address for service and other actions." We said, "Although we are keen to extend our electronic filing coverage we do not have any specific plans to do so in the short term, because of the underlying problems we face with continually adapting our internal legacy IT systems (eg a mainframe system which is over 20 years old) to support the extended and new e business services that you and our other customers need. We are, therefore, planning to start a major new programme to modernise Patents practice, processes and customer services. Initially, we aim to hold stakeholder workshops to help inform us of the requirements for the Patent processes and services of the future."
You said, "I only found your Green Channel information by pure chance and have now used it. On re-visiting the web site today to see how easily I could find it again (thinking I must have been very silly to have missed it initially) I must have spent 20 minutes trying to track down the link. Eventually I found it when I clicked 'On-line Patent service' then at the bottom of the list on the left 'Green Channel Patent Applications', followed by 'help notes' which was about Data. So I gave up and typed Green Channel into search. I found Green Channel FAQ's second down the list and then having read the FAQ's clicked on 'Green Channels for Patent Applications' on the left hand side. I then tried to re-trace my steps to see whether I could in fact have linked to this information at a much earlier stage and at one point under a ‘Patents' link on the left (not the one that appears first of all at the start of the web site) 'Accelerated Procedures' appeared and clicking on this informed me about the Green Channel and a few others. Clicking on Green Channel took me into the information I required. Having read the above, perhaps you would like to reconstruct the site in some manner so that everyone realises very early on that there is a Green Channel. Thank you for your time. I hope this has been helpful. Your comments would be much appreciated." We replied, “Many thanks for your email providing helpful feedback about how we could improve access to the information provided on our website about the Green Channel. We have just recently been considering how to improve this information on our website, and it is always helpful to hear comments from website users. We will certainly take your comments on board and consider whether we can improve access further."
You said, "I required a search to check whether the idea was patentable before committing resources and time to it. Regarding the quality of service - the search results seemed thorough. You felt that you could have done with more information justifying why the examiner reached his conclusion regarding some of the claims. You chose the Search and Advisory Service because you felt the IPO would be most credible to any 3rd parties. You were satisfied with the overall service you had received." No response required as examiner was made aware of this situation.
You made general comments regarding the Intellectual Property system. We said, "I understand from your correspondence that you are essentially suggesting that these relevant authorities now consider the protection of "ideas" to sit alongside the more recognised IP protection of Patents, Trade Marks, Designs and Copyright. Given your level of knowledge, I am sure it will not come as a surprise to you that the concept of protecting ideas has been suggested and considered many times over the years, nationally and internationally. It is generally recognised and accepted and throughout history legislated, that it is the products of ideas that should rightfully protected by law, rather than the ideas themselves. Hence we have the IP laws we do. Although changes to IP law are developed and discussed internationally all the time, it is not on the agenda as far as I am aware to consider laws protecting ideas as such. I am sorry if this reply disappoints you, but I trust you will recognise that suggestions such as yours have been considered in detail many times in the past but not accepted as being necessary because IP protection is thought to be sufficient."
You asked, "I am concerned that despite following the instructions for electronic filing, only Figure 1 appeared to have been included. I thought that I had included 8 other figures (all pdf files) but they did not show at the final stage. I would appreciate your confirmation that you have received 9 figures in all." We sent a letter stating, “That the missing drawing had been found and you would therefore retain your original filing date, but also stated that you still had to file formal drawings as the originals were not acceptable."
You said, "When submitting forms online why, despite providing our file reference, does it not appear on the confirmation copies of the forms that are emailed back to us? If submitting two sets of forms on the same application i.e. form 9a and form 10 at the same time, we enter our file reference for both forms, but when the email copies come back our file reference is shown on the form 10 but not on the form 9a. Also, when submitting payment online using our deposit account, we are asked to confirm an email address, but the fee confirmations which are subsequently emailed back are sent to a different email address to the one we gave at the time of filing. It seems pointless to ask users to confirm an email address for the deposit account if you are going to use different default address that you have on your records." We replied, "Thank you for your e mail about the patents E-filing service. I will try and answer your questions and queries below. On starting the SFD submission you can input a reference. This reference is the one that is generated on the filing receipt. If submitting forms the reference is pre-filed, but it is possible for you to change it if you wish. We believe that you might not have completed the first reference but did complete the individual form references and therefore, they appear on each form but not on the receipt. As for emails, the email address the user provides at "contact details" stage is the one the submission filing receipt is sent to. The email address given at "payment" stage (for a deposit account payment) is required by our financial department to validate that the deposit account given is the correct one. Our finance department confirmed that your email address on the deposit account, but if you wish to change this for all future correspondence then; please contact our finance department. I hope the above answers your questions, and have been of some help."
You said, "When issuing the receipt for the on-line patent filing it would be helpful if it gives the name of the uploaded files for the specification and drawings. There seems to be no way that I can confirm that I did in fact click on the correct files on my computer to upload." We said, "You can check the documents you had uploaded at step 13 of the form and we explained how you would do that. We are sorry that this does not meet your suggestion, but we have shown you an alternative option".
You said, "I would like to take the opportunity to let you know of a typo error on the locked downloadable Patents form 10 that is currently live on the IPO website. In section 3 it should read Full name of the applicant or of each applicant instead it reads Full name of the or of each applicant." We replied, "Thank you for your feedback regarding Patents Form 10 available on our website. The wording "Full name of the or of each applicant" is intentional, to keep the length of the question brief. However, it is appreciated that the wording could be clearer. The forms are updated periodically, and we will keep your feedback in mind when Patents form 10 is next updated."
You said, "The issue appears to relate to the fact that there are 2 links to Tribunal Practice Notices, both of which go to the same page. It looks ask if all TPNs are listed together, whether for patents, trade marks or designs. Is this correct? The fact that there are 2 links that specify - respectively - patents and trade marks leads the user to expect to see TPNs for the relevant area only. A single link would be clearer. Common page that both link to: The links to subject-specific notices, eg Patent Practice Notices, trade mark Practice Amendment Notices, and Designs Practice Notices, are fine (although their locations on website menus are not consistent)." We told you, "That the index page for TPNs on the website has been updated to identify patent, trade mark and designs TPNs."
You said, "GB on the application number does not spell UK so when looking for Great Britain, it is nowhere to be seen. If you then look for UK listing, in one place has United Kingdom at top, and then at another in the middle. It is not obvious where to go when completing a filing on line." We said, "I am sorry that you did not find country designation for GB patent applications very clear when completing an on line filing. I hope the following will help to explain some of the apparent inconsistencies that you have pointed out. Patents applied for in the UK have had the prefix 'GB' as part of the patent application number for over 100 years and it is now part of the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) standard with which we comply. Similarly, WIPO have a standard covering the two letter county code to be used for the country of residence of applicants and inventors which is "UK" for those residents in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In response to customer feedback we moved UK to the top of the first drop down list because most users of this service are resident in the UK. We did not make a similar change to the subsequent drop down list because UK is not the most frequently used country designation for applications claiming priority from a previous application."
You told us, "This week I filed by post but found it difficult to pay my application fee; it was received. My online application replaces the posted application. There are a few minor additions to this new application; so the only issue is that I have lost a few days in getting the priority date." We responded, "Further to your online feedback and our telephone conversation, I am writing to confirm that your online feedback was in relation to the troubles you have been having in trying to file patent applications online. Although you managed to file a Patent application online after, you received warning messages that has resulted in you questioning whether the application was filed completely. You stated that the application filed this morning contained minor amendments/additions to an application that was filed with the office on the 18 March 2011 by post, and you wished the new application to claim priority from. I informed you that I would ask a colleague who will have access to Patent applications that have been recently filed online, to contact you to confirm the contents of the patent application that you file online this morning. I have since contacted my colleague and he has agreed to contact you. Please remember to have your online Patent application number on hand, in order to assist my colleague in locating your Patent application. You also stated that you had trouble filing an online Patent application a week ago, which resulted in you posting the Patent application to the office and resulted in the filing. However we could not ascertain what prevented you from filing this new application. During our conversation you also referred to visits that you have made to the office, and queried whether the PC terminals that are in main reception are now defunct. With relatives in the Newport area, you have in the past popped into the Office to check on the status of one or more of your patent applications, and on the last two visits the terminals have not been working which has resulted in Information Centre staff having to return to their desk to find the relevant information. You questioned whether the terminals will be working in the future. I informed you that I would pass on this enquiry to our Information Centre, and they have subsequently been made aware of your query."
You said, "When a caveat is filed (PF 49/77), I understand that it is not possible to receive notifications by e-mail. I am monitoring a patent application for a client (and submitting third party observations on his behalf) that is close to the compliance period. Thus examination reports and applicant responses are being sent out/ filed at short notice. By the time the notification has issued and has been received by post several days can have elapsed. This significantly shortens the period available for our client to respond to the changed status of the application. Would it be possible to receive notifications by e-mail in future? We responded, "Thank you for your feedback concerning Patents Form 49 (CAVEAT) and requesting that future notifications be sent to you by e-mail. We do not currently offer this service and all notifications are issued by post. We do aim to issue notifications as soon as practicable after the event has occurred. However, as the Office moves towards its long-term vision of increased e-services, electronic caveat notification will be one of the many things which we will want to offer, whether by email or some other means. Any future form of electronic notification will need to take into account confidentiality (the identity and contact details of the requester and the fact that a request has been made must remain confidential) and reliability of delivery. Thank you for your feedback, I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful."
You said, "While making a Patent application online step, 10 of 14 hung for a while. My attached documents: description claims & abstract were only three pages long - one page for each item. The software on your system didn't appear to like the idea of a range: description 1 to 1 claims 2 to 2 abstract 3 to 3. Maybe a little bug in your system? Or a need to explain why it got stuck there and wanted to verify the query about page range? It did finally succeed, only after querying the page range for each item." We replied, "Thank you for your feedback about the problem with the application hanging when entering the page numbers for a single specification. We have extensively tested this scenario on our systems and it would appear to have been a “blip” at the time of your submission. However we will keep monitoring in case any other customers have a similar issue. The contents of your application have been checked and all 3 pages were received. Thank you again for taking time to provide us with feedback."
You told us, "Yesterday I received an invoice for £1,663.00 from a company calling themselves Registration and International Patent giving the application, filing date etc, and so looking to be a proper invoice. Bank address is Kubacova 19 831 06 Bratislava. I wanted you to be aware of this thank you." We said, "We are aware that a number of companies are sending out Trade Mark/Patent renewal reminders. We would always encourage you to speak to your existing attorney before responding to such demands. Alternatively, you can check the status of your mark/registration on our website, along with the proposed fees. Using you registration numbers on the below links will return you the desired information: Patents, Trade marks. In addition to this, please could you also raise Trading Standard's awareness to the issue on the Consumer Direct External Link website."
You were unable to locate the Patent Journal on our website. You received help over the phone.
You said, "Is the UKIPO planning on extending their on line services? I have listed some of the actions we feel would be a great asset if your online service was extended to include: Filing a request for an extension of time - in place of using the email patent@ipo.gov.uk - feed back is the automatic receipt is not always received. Withdraw a patent application - in place of using e-mail withdraw@ipo.gov.uk File formal drawings, requesting and pay fee for certified copy of an earlier UK application when required for foreign filings. File a F20/77; file a F51/77 or letter to request an address for service." We said, "Although we are keen to extend our electronic filing coverage we do not have any specific plans to do so in the short term, because of the underlying problems we face with continually adapting our internal legacy IT systems (eg a mainframe system which is over 20 years old) to support the extended and new e-business services that you and our other customers need. We are, therefore, planning to start a major new programme to modernise Patents practice, processes and customer services. Initially, we aim to hold stakeholder workshops to help inform us of the requirements for the Patent processes and services of the future."
You said, "The check box on final payment page which warns you about emailing is adrift appearing above the relevant type which is a whole paragraph below. The website is good but still very confusing. Just take the page here, what is the empty box above this for?" We told you, "Thank you for your feedback about the Patents web filing service and our website. I am sorry you find the website is still very confusing. We are keen to improve the site and its services in order to make it easier for our customers to use, so your feedback is welcome as we can take it into account (along with feedback from other customers) when we next get an opportunity to make improvements. Thank you again for taking the time to send us your comments."
You told us, "The PDF requirements for the online submission could be a nightmare. A lot of individuals like myself cannot afford to purchase programs that convert word to PDF. A word document is just as easy to read and transmit. The page range selector is confusing and not enough has been put to explain this. It took me over two hours just to complete this section. To me if you have 4 pages in a book then its page 1-4 simple. Every time I tried to select a combination I was given a red error message that made absolutely no sense at all. Trying to draw pictures in word to the constraints that the application has is hard enough, trying then to convert that into a PDF file is a complete nightmare. Over complicating a simple process is bad practice. I am disabled and suffer from arthritis in all my finger joints, please have a little thought for those not so IT literate because of disability." We replied, "The requirement to file documents as PDFs was chosen for both of our e-filing systems when they were designed because the software needed to generate PDF documents is freely and widely available and because it is often provided as an option in modern word processing packages. In addition, by insisting on PDF documents it helps us to ensure that we receive precisely the same documents that you filed; whereas with word processed documents there is an increased risk that they could be altered inadvertently when we receive and store them electronically. Thank you for taking the time to send us your feedback, I am sorry I cannot be more helpful, but when we next review these services we will take your suggestions into account."
You told us, "With regard to the "subsequently filed documents" on-line filing facility, it would be very helpful for the descriptions available for describing the document to be extended or, at least, to include an "other" possibility. Today I had to file a copy of a witness statement but had to describe it as "amended pages". On other occasions I have wanted to file annotated replacement claims to show the examiner the changes I was making but had to describe these as "replacement claims" when they were merely being filed additional to the actual replacement claims as an aid to the examiner." We told you there is an option under other for filing subsequently filed documents that are not listed. However, we told you that this should not be used for withdrawing applications as there are specific email addresses for that purpose.
You told us, "@ the end of the form, on the last page after payment has been processed, when you try and view your invoice you get a form that says "formpdf", which fails to open even after being downloaded. One actually has to insert a "." (full stop) in the saving window, and change the file name to "form.pdf" for the file to be usable. A full stop is missing, and whoever was coding this should be asked to insert the full stop (".")" We notified you of what the error you were making on the form 10.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1000.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and guided you to our web page.
You had received unsolicited mail from TM-Edition requesting £950.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and guided you to our web page.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00 x2. We replied, "Thank you for your feedback dated 4 February 2011 regarding a trade mark renewal service letter from the Intellectual Property Agency (IPA). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We have received many letters from our customers recently about the IPA and as a result we are seeking advice from our lawyers about the validity of the invoices they issue. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. We are also speaking to Trading Standards officials (our home authority) about the complaints we have received about this type of unsolicited mail. We understand that this situation will be discussed further within the Trading Standards organisation. Our request was that the Trading Standards organisation also alerts businesses to this issue. A warning notice has been on our website for a while but in light of the increasing complaints we are receiving we are considering moving this notice to a more prominent position. For your ease I have copied the relevant renewal reminder paragraph below: Unsolicited renewal reminders, unsolicited renewal reminders are being issued to the holders of UK Patents and Trade Marks inviting the rights holder to sign and return a document and pay a fee in order to renew. There is no obligation to pay them. The only office that issues an official reminder for renewal of a UK IP right is the Intellectual Property Office. We are also looking into how we can alert trade mark owners earlier about their renewals and the costs involved; receiving this information will enable our customers to make an informed choice about their options when renewing their trade marks. I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the IPA. If you decide to renew your Trade Mark, the fee is £200 for one class of goods, plus £50 for each additional class. These fees can be paid directly to us. The Intellectual Property Office will send you a reminder about your renewal, and the form that needs to be completed, around three months before it is due. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1028.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We replied, "Thank you for your letter dated 5 February 2011 regarding a trade mark renewal service letter from the Intellectual Property Agency (IPA). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We have received many letters from our customers recently about the IPA and as a result we are seeking advice from our lawyers about the validity of the invoices they issue. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. We are also speaking to Trading Standards officials (our home authority) about the complaints we have received about this type of unsolicited mail. We understand that this situation will be discussed further within the Trading Standards organisation. Our request was that the Trading Standards organisation also alerts businesses to this issue. A warning notice has been on our website for a while but in light of the increasing complaints we are receiving we are considering moving this notice to a more prominent position. For your ease I have copied the relevant renewal reminder paragraph below: Unsolicited renewal reminders, unsolicited renewal reminders are being issued to the holders of UK Patents and Trade Marks inviting the rights holder to sign and return a document and pay a fee in order to renew. There is no obligation to pay them. The only office that issues an official reminder for renewal of a UK IP right is the Intellectual Property Office. We are also looking into how we can alert trade mark owners earlier about their renewals and the costs involved; receiving this information will enable our customers to make an informed choice about their options when renewing their Trade Marks. I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the IPA. If you decide to renew your trade mark, the fee is £200 for one class of goods, plus £50 for each additional class. These fees can be paid directly to us. The Intellectual Property Office will send you a reminder about your renewal, and the form that needs to be completed, around three months before it is due. The renewal date for this application is 19 July 2011. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had requested unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We directed you to our pages on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from WIPD requesting £1386.00; from RIPT requesting $2662.50 and from Patent Trademark Register requesting $2692.50. We replied, "Thank you for your letter dated 5th February 2011 about the various invoices you have received. These organisations regularly issues un-solicited mail to trade mark applicants with the purpose of securing entries into their register. Having entries in their registers is not compulsory, and has no bearing on the UK-IPO registration or renewal process; we are separate organisations. We receive regular enquiries about this type of unsolicited literature and due to the volume of these enquiries we have a placed a warning notice on our website. For your ease I have copied the relevant paragraph from our notice below: Entries in unofficial publications or registers. Owners of UK Patents, Designs and Trade Marks are being invited to apply for entry in various publications and "registers" in return for a fee. These parties tend to make their offers in the form of invoices, which are usually issued after publication of the official application. There is no obligation to pay them. The only offices that are able to provide legal protection for Patents, Designs and Trade Marks in the UK are the Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office and the Community Trade Mark Office (more formally known as the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market - OHIM). We are also talking to our lawyers about this type of unsolicited mail. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1290.00. We directed you to our renewals department.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. The Information Centre advised you to speak to Trading Standards and directed you to the information on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We responded with regards to your unsolicited mail. We explained that we are aware of the IPA sending out invoices to our customers. We told you that we are speaking to Trading Standards and advised you also to speak to them. The Office is doing everything in its power to resolve this issue.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. The Trade Marks department advised you to speak to Trading Standards and directed you to the information on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00 The Information Centre advised you to speak to Trading Standards and directed you to the information on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1074.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. You had signed the contract and sent it back to IPA. You then informed them you would not want them to renew your Trade Mark and they have issued you with a large admin bill. The Information Centre advised you to speak to Trading Standards and advised you seek legal advice.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. The Information Centre advised you contact Trading Standards.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from Trade Mark Renewal Service requesting £760.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. The Information Centre advised you contact Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "That IPA is not related to the IPO. We have received many letters from our customers recently about the IPA and as a result we are seeking advice from our lawyers about the validity of the invoices they issue. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. We are also speaking to Trading Standards officials (our home authority) about the complaints we have received about this type of unsolicited mail. We understand that this situation will be discussed further within the Trading Standards organisation. Our request was that the Trading Standards organisation also alerts businesses to this issue. A warning notice has been on our web site for a while but in light of the increasing complaints we are receiving we are considering moving this notice to a more prominent position."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75 and were unhappy and wanted to know what the office was doing about it. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We replied, "Thank you for your letter dated 6 January 2011 regarding a trade mark renewal service letter from the Intellectual Property Agency (IPA). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We have received many letters from our customers recently about the IPA and as a result we are seeking advice from our lawyers about the validity of the invoices they issue. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. We are also speaking to trading standards officials (our home authority) about the complaints we have received about this type of unsolicited mail. We understand that this situation will be discussed further within the trading standards organisation. Our request was that the trading standards organisation also alerts businesses to this issue. A warning notice has been on our website for a while but in light of the increasing complaints we are receiving we are considering moving this notice to a more prominent position. For your ease I have copied the relevant renewal reminder paragraph below: Unsolicited renewal reminders, unsolicited renewal reminders are being issued to the holders of UK Patents and Trade Marks inviting the rights holder to sign and return a document and pay a fee in order to renew. There is no obligation to pay them. The only office that issues an official reminder for renewal of a UK IP right is the Intellectual Property Office. We are also looking into how we can alert trade mark owners earlier about their renewals and the costs involved; receiving this information will enable our customers to make an informed choice about their options when renewing their Trade Marks. I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the IPA. If you decide to renew your trade mark, the fee is £200 for one class of goods, plus £50 for each additional class. These fees can be paid directly to us. The Intellectual Property Office will send you a reminder about your renewal, and the form that needs to be completed, around three months before it is due. The renewal date for this application is 28 September 2011. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We replied, "Thank you for your letter dated 12 February 2011 regarding a trade mark renewal service letter from the Intellectual Property Agency (IPA). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We have received many letters from our customers recently about the IPA and as a result we are seeking advice from our lawyers about the validity of the invoices they issue. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. We are also speaking to Trading Standards officials (our home authority) about the complaints we have received about this type of unsolicited mail. We understand that this situation will be discussed further within the Trading Standards organisation. Our request was that the Trading Standards organisation also alerts businesses to this issue. A warning notice has been on our website for a while but in light of the increasing complaints we are receiving we are considering moving this notice to a more prominent position. For your ease I have copied the relevant renewal reminder paragraph below: Unsolicited renewal reminders, unsolicited renewal reminders are being issued to the holders of UK Patents and Trade Marks inviting the rights holder to sign and return a document and pay a fee in order to renew. There is no obligation to pay them. The only office that issues an official reminder for renewal of a UK IP right is the Intellectual Property Office. We are also looking into how we can alert Trade Mark owners earlier about their renewals and the costs involved; receiving this information will enable our customers to make an informed choice about their options when renewing their Trade Marks. I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the IPA. If you decide to renew your trade mark, the fee is £200 for one class of goods, plus £50 for each additional class. These fees can be paid directly to us. The Intellectual Property Office will send you a reminder about your renewal, and the form that needs to be completed, around three months before it is due. The renewal date for this application is 3 September 2011. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You said you had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £1400.00. You were unhappy and wanted to know what the office is doing about it? We replied, "Thank you for your feedback of 9th March 2011 regarding a Trade Mark register service from the EIEC (European Institute for Economy and Commerce). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We are looking at further ways of advising customers about the possibility of them receiving unsolicited mail (we already do so when acknowledging new applications). We are also considering whether there is any other action we should take. In the meantime, I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the EIEC. As for your Trade Mark applications - one is registered & one is currently advertised in the Trade Mark Journal which is available on our website. I hope this email has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from GAIA requesting £1350.00. We advised you to disregard the information and referred you to the information on our website regarding unsolicited mail.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised to disregard the notice and guided you to the page on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from GAIA requesting £1350.00. We advised you to disregard the notice.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We replied, "Thank you for your feedback of 7 March 2011 regarding a Trade Mark register service from the EIEC (European Institute for Economy and Commerce). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We are looking at further ways of advising customers about the possibility of them receiving unsolicited mail (we already do so when acknowledging new applications). We are also considering whether there is any other action we should take. In the meantime, I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the EIEC. I hope this email has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct and the information on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You told us, "I wonder if you could advise me. I have received today an invoice for £479.75 from the EIEC European Institute for Economy and Commerce. I'm confused as to why I would receive this, and I certainly haven't planned to pay £479.00. Can you give me some more information? I suspect it's not an official register." We replied, "Thank you for your feedback of 7 March 2011 regarding a Trade Mark register service from the EIEC (European Institute for Economy and Commerce). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We are looking at further ways of advising customers about the possibility of them receiving unsolicited mail (we already do so when acknowledging new applications). We are also considering whether there is any other action we should take. In the meantime, I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the EIEC. I hope this email has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You told us, "Please find attached a copy of an invoice sent through to our business from EIEC requesting £479.75. I have researched this on the net and it appears to be a scam and not related to the Intellectual Property office. Please can you confirm whether this is true and also the status of our current application? We replied, "Thank you for your feedback of 2nd March regarding a Trade Mark register service from the EIEC (European Institute for Economy and Commerce). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We are looking at further ways of advising customers about the possibility of them receiving unsolicited mail (we already do so when acknowledging new applications). We are also considering whether there is any other action we should take. In the meantime, I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the EIEC. I hope this email has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from Trade Mark Renewal Service requesting £760.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received a letter from us informing you that a Trade Mark has been applied for the same or similar to your Trade Mark. This is the second notification you have had and has already been through the opposition process before and lost a large sum of money. You are very unhappy about the Trade Mark procedure and concerned you would forever be defending his Trade Mark. We replied, "I refer to your telephone call to our information centre when you complained about the second Trade Mark notification of opposition. I apologise for the delay in replying to you. I am sorry that you are having difficulties with trade mark applications being filed that are similar to your registered mark. The Trade Mark application process is governed by the Trade Marks Act 1994. We are obliged to notify you under Section 5 (2)(b) of this Act, if any new application for a Trade Mark is similar to an earlier registered Trade Mark, in this case your Trade Mark, particularly if it is likely to cause confusion to the public. There is information available on our website about challenging/opposing trade mark applications which you may find helpful. You may also like to consider attending the free advice clinics that are run both at the IPO and at other venues across the country. Further information about these clinics is available on the IPO website or you can contact the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA) External Link for advice on how to protect your trade mark. Alternatively you can contact the Intellectual Property Office on 0300 300 2000 and we will get one of our opposition staff to advise you on the opposition process. I hope you have found the above information useful."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We replied, "Thank you for your letter dated 8 March 2011 about the European Institute for Economy and Commerce (EIEC) invoice dated 12 February 2011. This organisation regularly issues un-solicited mail to Trade Mark applicants with the purpose of securing entries into their register. Having an entry in the EIEC register is not compulsory, and has no bearing on the UK-IPO registration or renewal process; we are two separate organisations. We receive regular enquiries about this type of unsolicited literature and due to the volume of these enquiries we have a placed a warning notice on our website. For your ease I have copied the relevant paragraph from our notice below: Entries in unofficial publications or registers. Owners of UK Patents, Designs and Trade Marks are being invited to apply for entry in various publications and "registers" in return for a fee. These parties tend to make their offers in the form of invoices, which are usually issued after publication of the official application. There is no obligation to pay them. The only offices that are able to provide legal protection for Patents, Designs and Trade Marks in the UK are the Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office and the Community Trade Mark Office (more formally known as the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market - OHIM). We are also talking to our lawyers about this type of unsolicited mail. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We replied, "Thank you for your email dated 11 March 2011 about the European Institute for Economy and Commerce (EIEC) invoice dated 26 February 2011. This organisation regularly issues un-solicited mail to Trade Mark applicants with the purpose of securing entries into their register. We receive regular enquiries about this type of unsolicited literature and due to the volume of these enquiries we have a placed a warning notice on our website. We are also talking to our lawyers about this type of unsolicited mail. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standard."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice.
You said, "Several issues which are far from clear. Applied for registration of a Trade Mark - classes' info isn't clear; he only found it from trial and error. Doesn't think that people around the world would find it easy to find info on our website. Need to have simple instructive info on classes. Found it really difficult to understand. Took him 40 min to file form and found it expensive. He came to pay screen and it came up with a security check it asked him for, what he thought was the security code, which he did and it said it wasn't valid. Wants us to talk to pay pal and find out exactly what it means. Feedback also on the forms. He wants someone to email him to agree a date/time for someone to ring him. Ring me for more info." We said, "Thank you very much for your email of 23 February and also for the feedback you provided to our office.
Your comments have been looked at in detail and I am pleased to inform you that our website is currently being updated and some changes have been implemented. I was unsure from your email if you had completed your application in full or if you require help to do so. If you could clarify this I can arrange for someone from our office to contact you. With regard to your query about "Pay Pal", I would like to confirm that we do not use this service. I look forward to your response."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and forwarded you to the renewals department.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to the information on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You told us, "The TM50 form states that a fee of £50 is required but doesn't state that a form FS2 is also required. May I suggest that this is added?" We told you, "Thank you very much for your email dated 16 March and the feedback you provided. As a result of your enquiry, I am pleased to inform you that our website has been updated and our working practices are being changed. In future, all fee bearing forms will state that a form FS2 is required. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to the information on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £500.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You advised, "Our greatest frustration is with the unpredictability of Trade Mark register ability." No response required.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from GAIA requesting £1350.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from TM Additions requesting £950.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We replied, "Thank you for your letter dated 18 March 2011 regarding a Trade Mark renewal service letter from the Intellectual Property Agency (IPA). I can confirm that this organisation is not related to the Intellectual Property Office in any way. We have received many letters from our customers recently about the IPA and as a result we are seeking advice from our lawyers about the validity of the invoices they issue. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. We are also speaking to Trading Standards officials (our home authority) about the complaints we have received about this type of unsolicited mail. We understand that this situation will be discussed further within the Trading Standards organisation. Our request was that the Trading Standards organisation also alerts businesses to this issue. A warning notice has been on our website for a while but in light of the increasing complaints we are receiving we are considering moving this notice to a more prominent position. For your ease I have copied the relevant renewal reminder paragraph below: Unsolicited renewal reminders Unsolicited renewal reminders are being issued to the holders of UK Patents and Trade Marks inviting the rights holder to sign and return a document and pay a fee in order to renew. There is no obligation to pay them. The only office that issues an official reminder for renewal of a UK IP right is the Intellectual Property Office. We are also looking into how we can alert Trade Mark owners earlier about their renewals and the costs involved; receiving this information will enable our customers to make an informed choice about their options when renewing their Trade Marks. I would advise that you are under no obligation to take up the service being offered by the IPA. If you decide to renew your trade mark, the fee is £200 for one class of goods, plus £50 for each additional class. These fees can be paid directly to us. The Intellectual Property Office will send you a reminder about your renewal, and the form that needs to be completed, around three months before it is due. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC for registration in the EU. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to the information on our website.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We replied, "Regarding your question about the EIEC invoice dated 23 October. This organisation regularly issues unsolicited mail to Trade Mark applicants with the purpose of securing entries into their register. Having an entry in the EIEC register is not compulsory, and has no bearing on the UK-IPO registration process; we are two separate organisations. We receive regular enquiries about this type of unsolicited literature and due to the volume of these enquiries we have a placed a warning notice on our website.
For your ease I have copied the relevant paragraph from our notice below: Entries in unofficial publications or registers - Owners of UK patents, designs and trademarks are being invited to apply for entry in various publications and "registers" in return for a fee. These parties tend to make their offers in the form of invoices, which are usually issued after publication of the official application. There is no obligation to pay them. The only offices that are able to provide legal protection for Patents, Designs and Trade Marks in the UK are the Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office and the Community Trade Mark Office (more formally known as the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market - OHIM). I hope the above information is useful and I apologise for the delay in replying to you."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from ECTO requesting 2750 Euros. We responded that we are aware of companies sending out similar mail, but this is the first of its kind that we have seen from this company. We explained we are seeking legal advice and are also speaking to Trading Standards. We also suggested you contact the Trading Standards.
You have contacted the office on three separate occasions to inform us that we are sending mail to the wrong address. We replied, "Thanks for speaking to me earlier and for explain the problems you have been having. I have checked the papers on file and discovered that when the application was made the filer quoted your house number and not their own. This has now been corrected. Please accept my apologies for the confusion and for the time it has taken to correct this oversight. Also, please feel free to contact me if there is anything else I can do to help."
You said, "You were very concerned that we did not ask for notarization on our forms as you thought it would be necessary to prevent fraudulent assignment/change of name applications. You were ringing to ask about how you could prevent someone 'stealing' your Trade Mark." We directed you to the caveats section on the website. We said, "That we did not ask for notarized forms it in the interest of 'customer-friendliness' and having to avoid extra expense for customers, we told you we would pass your comments on to the relevant area."
You had received unsolicited mail from CPA Global requesting £546.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You said, "The issue appears to relate to the fact that there are 2 links to Tribunal Practice Notices, both of which go to the same page. It looks ask if all TPNs are listed together, whether for Patents, Trade Marks or Designs. Is this correct? The fact that there are 2 links that specify – respectively – Patents and Trade Marks leads the user to expect to see TPNs for the relevant area only. A single link would be clearer. Menu with 2 separate items: Common page that both link to. The links to subject-specific notices, eg Patent Practice Notices, Trade Mark Practice Amendment Notices, and Designs Practice Notices, are fine (although their locations on website menus are not consistent)." We told you, "That the index page for TPNs on the website has been updated to identify Patent, Trade Mark and Designs TPNs."
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards and we explained the office is seeking legal advice regarding the issue."
You had received correspondence from an Asian company about registering domain names with them. You are concerned that the company is a scam. We contacted you by telephone regarding the unsolicited mail you had received. We informed you of the proposed mail shot that we will be sending out to customers regarding companies like this.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We told you, "To contact Trading Standards."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We replied, "Thank you for your letter received on 24 March 2011 about the European Institute for Economy and Commerce (EIEC) invoice, dated 26 February 2011. This organisation regularly issues un-solicited mail to Trade Mark applicants with the purpose of securing entries into their register. Having an entry in the EIEC register is not compulsory, and has no bearing on the UK-IPO registration or renewal process; we are two separate organisations. We receive regular enquiries about this type of unsolicited literature and due to the volume of these enquiries we have a placed a warning notice on our website. For your ease I have copied the relevant paragraph from our notice below: Entries in unofficial publications or registers - Owners of UK Patents, Designs and Trade Marks are being invited to apply for entry in various publications and "registers" in return for a fee. These parties tend to make their offers in the form of invoices, which are usually issued after publication of the official application. There is no obligation to pay them. The only offices that are able to provide legal protection for Patents, Designs and Trade Marks in the UK are the Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office and the Community Trade Mark Office (more formally known as the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market - OHIM). We are also talking to our lawyers about this type of unsolicited mail. We shall take the appropriate remedial action based on the legal advice we receive. I hope this letter has clarified the situation for you. If you require any further information please get in touch with me."
You said, "It would be more helpful if the Trade Mark database explained the treatment of expired, refused and withdrawn marks." We agreed to amend the additional search notes on the external website to include the additional information as required.
You said, "In the Designs database, many of the sub sub classes cannot be read in full. Examples are 25-51 within 21/01, toys and games. This means that the exact sub sub class cannot be understood. Extra space is needed in the box so that the full title can be read." We replied, "Thank you for your comment about the Design Locarno Classification database that is available on the UK IPO website. We are aware of this problem and are looking at ways this shortfall in our service can be overcome. As you will appreciate this is an IT issue which may take some time to resolve. In the meantime if you have any Locarno classification queries in the future please feel free to ring our Information Centre on 0300 300 2000 where you will be transferred to a Designs Examiner who will be able to advise you. I apologise for the delay in responding to your comments."
You had received unsolicited mail from EIEC requesting £479.75. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You said, "Please can you clarify the opposition period for Trade Marks once advertised as you have quoted 2 months in correspondence to me but your website appears to have changed and now says 3 months as below. Which is it? What happens once the mark is accepted? Once we have accepted your trade mark we will publish it in our weekly Trade Marks Journal and write to tell you the publication date and the number of that Journal. We publish the Trade Marks Journal on Fridays (except public holidays). It contains full details of: all Trade Mark applications accepted in the previous week (Thursday to Wednesday). Registrations, renewals, and changes to the register. After we publish your Trade Mark, anybody may make observations on its acceptance or oppose its registration. The opposition period runs from the publication date of the Journal and lasts for three-months. If we receive any opposition to the acceptance of the Trade Mark we will copy any correspondence to you and tell you how to deal with the opposition process." We responded, "Thank you for your question about the Trade Mark opposition period. After a Trade Mark has been published there is a two month period in which third parties may oppose its registration. This period may be extended to three months for any party which files an electronic form TM7a 'Notice of threatened opposition' but this must be done within the initial two months. The TM7a form can only be submitted on-line. You should note that filing a form TM7a does not commit you to opposing the application. If you want to oppose the registration of the trade mark without any extension to the time period allowed, then you can file a form TM7 'Notice of opposition' at any time within the two month period. I hope this explanation has answered your question. In the future if you have any other queries about the Trade Mark process please feel free to ring our Information Centre on 0300 300 2000 where you will be transferred to a member of the Trade Mark and Designs Registry who will be able to assist you. I apologise for the delay in replying to you."
You said, "I do a fair amount of Design searching for clients, Patent agents and the like. And I am to some extent hampered by not having full definitions of the LOCARNO classification classes, sub classes and sub sub classes. Is it possible to provide me with this in either hard copy or downloadable form? My current problem is trying to locate suitable headings for searching for tables for table saws. Searching 08 03 04 disclosed nothing of interest but possibly the tables per se will be classified elsewhere. Another little thing which has been problem over the years is the fact that for some obscure reason the UK Design office database does not allow for searching company names of less than 3 characters when clearly a number of companies will have names of 2 characters. I had to search the name CK TOOLS the other day and am not sure if that is in fact the correct full name but I can't search CK alone - how odd. How would you deal with that? Thanks in advance for your help." We explained the classification system and provided you with a Locarno classification list.
You had received unsolicited mail from WDTP requesting £1489.83. We contacted you by telephone regarding the unsolicited mail you had received. We informed you of the proposed mail shot that we will be sending out to customers regarding companies like this.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.
You said, "I rang regarding a change of address that had been recorded, and wanted to hide the previous address as this was a private address that had now been sold." You were concerned that as our website displayed the old address details (as well as the new), that the new private owners could be put in a position where they were worried about their safety due to people turning up at their doorstep. You asked where it was stated that people's names and addresses would be advertised on our website. We confirmed that since June 2010 (REV JUN 10) the new form DF2A stated this information, but as you made your application on a DF2A prior to this, his form did not state this information. We also pointed out that page 6 of the "How to apply for a Design PDF document(1.37Mb)" booklet stated this information too, so you were quite content with this information. However, when we checked the "Design forms and fees" link there are some "DF2A guidance notes" under the DF2A form, but there is no warning within these notes that the applicants name and address details will appear on our website and consequently can be searched through a search engine such as Google. As we have produced the "DF2A guidance notes", we believe they should be updated to include this warning so that they are in line with both the DF2A and "How to apply for a Design PDF document(1.37Mb)" booklet. We said, "You were content with the information that we had given you, therefore, we don't think there is any need to contact you regarding this issue, but think that the "DF2A guidance notes", should be updated to include the warning so that they are in line with both the DF2A and "How to apply for a Design PDF document(1.37Mb)" booklet.
You had received unsolicited mail from IPA requesting £1280.00. We advised you to disregard the notice and referred you to Consumer Direct.