Previous feedback
April to June 2008
| Compliments | Response and additional measures taken |
|---|---|
| “I am vastly impressed with the new service and the massive improvement it creates in the availability of detailed patent information on line”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| "First, I wish to convey my thanks to you and to your team for your support on this case. Your clarifications on the law for conversion of a classified European application particularly helpful." | No response/additional measures necessary |
| "Firstly I must express my gratitude to you both for all your help and advice.”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I would just like to thank you for your help and guidance given on my patent application.” | No response/additional measures necessary |
| ”We received your further search of claims 39 to 46 today, and I just wanted to thank you for performing the further search so quickly. It is also appreciated by the applicant”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “Thank you for your wonderful contribution to the Institute of Brand and Innovation Law‘s (IBIL's) Inaugural Seminar. All the IBIL team were really impressed by the quality of your presentation and I know that many members of the audience felt the same way because they told us”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “Thank you and your colleagues for all the help and assistance that they had given me over the years”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “All my dealings with the office have been awesome. Staff have always wanted to help, were interested and the service was value for money”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You have been very helpful and useful and I want to ensure that someone in the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) recognized your efforts”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I am very impressed with everyone I have dealt with at your office because staff were so helpful”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I was not expecting any help and was very happy with the advice and information that I had received, which helped me to understand the trade mark process better”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “Thank you for the speed and quality of your responses to my questions. It was such a pleasure to receive a quick response from a Government Department”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “In dealing with my amendments I was surprised that a Government Department would take the time to ring me rather than write. The IPO was a breath of fresh air to deal with and you were “brilliantly helpful”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I listened to your advice and amended my application accordingly. Thank you for all your help which was greatly appreciated. Without your help I do not think that I would have progressed as far as I have”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “Thank you for your help and assistance in respect of my application, it would have been much more difficult without your help”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I would like to pay our compliments to Search and Advisory Service (SAS) who have been exemplary in the help and clear advice they have provided throughout the process; it has been a pleasure to go through what initially felt might have been a difficult and stressful process. Our sincerest thanks”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I have used the SAS on a number of occasions and I have been impressed with the level of help given to an unrepresented applicant and also that I was always able to phone or e-mail the examiner for further advice”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You have helped me to overcome some difficult classification issues and I would just like to thank you for all your help with this - very professional”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| "We are delighted at the speed with which you examined our application, given the breadth of the specification”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I am very impressed with the amount of time you have given me I have used the SAS on a number of occasions and I would like to thank the SAS for all the time and assistance given to me”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I would wholeheartedly like to thank you for your impressive assistance. Once again thank you, the info was awesome”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “Thank you for your response. Your answer has clarified my query. At all times I have received advice and information that has been relevant and I have definitely found your service polite, helpful, efficient, knowledgeable and professional”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I have today submitted an application online rather than by post for the first time, and found the procedure to be extremely efficient. It literally took two minutes instead of 30 minutes by post. Great system”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “Just a note to say a really big thanks to you all for your work towards the World IP Day event on Friday and to the many others who worked behind the scenes on it. The whole event was very well organized” | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were really excellent, many thanks for your help.” | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very helpful and informative". | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were efficient and polite and provided an excellent service”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very helpful and pleasant and I appreciated his patience with me. I was granted a patent for my invention some time ago but because of a modification I have had to re-apply. I have good reason to be grateful to the staff at your office for so much advice and information as I have done this without an agent”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were professional, polite and helpful”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were excellent. I have contacted the office on three occasions and the service has always been excellent. It is pleasant these days to be able to talk to someone at the end of the telephone, that knows what is going on and knowledgeable on the subject, instead of a “computerized call centre”. Congratulations”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very knowledgeable and helpful". | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very polite and helpful”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were excellent, knowledgeable and gave sound advice”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You are the quickest, friendliest and useful helpline I have ever called. Fantastic service”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were friendly, the best government representative I have spoken to ever”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very friendly and provided a very good service”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were kind, respectful and well mannered”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very good and provided an excellent service”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very professional and provided an excellent service”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were a very impressive, polite and helpful lady”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very good, helpful and were a credit to your organization”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were excellent, extremely helpful”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were excellent and a refreshing change to other firms that I have dealt with”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were intelligent, considerate, informative, polite and top quality”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were excellent and I think that your verbal communication services have improved very considerably in the last few months”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very knowledgeable, completely answered my questions and gave helpful advice. Thank you for providing and efficient professional service”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “I have been involved with the Intellectual Property for over 40 years and the Patent Office and all its staff are shining examples of what other government departments ought to be”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were extremely helpful, proactive, clear, and concise, all round excellence. The service exceeded my expectations and I shall not hesitate to come back”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were friendly, professional. Guided me through the internet site, and went beyond the call of duty”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were polite and helpful, excellent”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very professional and helpful, I felt confident with the information provided, and the customer service was excellent”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| “You were very professional and efficient. I have dealt with the IPO on a number of occasions and the service I receive is always excellent”. | No response/additional measures necessary |
| General Feedback | |
| You said you wanted to know if you could patent software. | We gave you a thorough reply and explained the difficulties in applying for a patent in the UK or the EU to protect computer software and compared it with the stance taken by the US Office. |
| You said that you had received unofficial looking invoices and you were not sure if you needed to pay them. | We contacted you and explained what service these companies were offering and informed you that you did not have to pay the invoices and these invoices had nothing to do with your intellectual property rights. |
| You said you could not find the text for patents on our website | We contacted you and explained where this infomation could be found using the esp@cenet service, by using the links under our Find Patents heading on our website, or by putting a patent application number in our search engine. Your comments for improvements to this service were also passed onto the web site re-design project to consider. |
| You wanted to Patent a new game and wanted some advice. | We contacted you and advised that the new game/sport that was invented may be patentable especially if it involves unique apparatus. We also gave further information relating to the precautions that needed to be taken prior to filing for a patent. |
| You requested that your name was removed from our records so this it did not appear on Google searches. | We informed you that under Patents Rule 11(1) applicants must request that their names and addresses are kept confidential. No such request was made so the names and addresses on the patent application must remain in the public domain. |
| You said you filed an electronic trade mark application and you could not insert the full colour description because the field would only accept a restricted number of characters. | We thanked you for bringing this issue to our attention and said that the Head of Trade Mark Operations would look into this problem to see if it could be resolved. |
| You said there was a problem with the way that your trade mark series was displayed in the on-line journal. | We explained this was the result of a technical error in this particular journal and has since been corrected. |
| You said you wanted advice on how to oppose a conflicting trade mark. | We contacted you and gave a detailed account of the opposition process, which explained the opposition period and the date when a TM7 would have to be filed. |
| You said that some of the notification paragraphs were misleading and that there was incorrect wording on the Form TM25. | We said that the wording was correct but that we would look at the paragraphs again to see if they could be improved. The wording on the TM25 has been amended following your feedback. |
| You said that your name and address were incorrectly put on the history text of an application on the IPO website. | We said that we had reviewed the appropriate form and it has been re-designed to try and help to avoid this error happening again in the future. |
| You said you wanted to know the best way to pay for your renewals. | We informed you that the easiest way to pay for your renewals was to complete the Patent Form 12 and the FS2 (fees form) with a credit or debit card details and fax it to the IPO. |
| You said that you were having trouble making sure that you kept the tariffs up to date for the changes in Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) fees and asked whether it was possible to have an alert service that people could sign up to so that they were notified automatically when any fees change? | We sent you a link to the PCT Newsletter which gives details of any fee changes; we also said that the UKIPO advertise for approximately 6 weeks in the Patents Designs Journal when there are fee changes. The correct fees can also be found on the UKIPO website. |
| You said that you were surprised that the IPO had not sent more up to date National Phase entry information to WIPO. | We said that the supply of this information was voluntary, although we did accept that it was a valuable source of information for our customers. We are planning to move to an automated system later in 2008, which will mean that this information will automatically be sent to WIPO on a monthly basis. |
| You said that you had an idea of a format of a new TV Channel and wanted some Copyright advice. | We gave you a detailed response to your queries which included having a confidentiality contract in place before presenting your work to others. You were told that a large amount of copyright information was on our website and there was also the option of attending a free monthly copyright workshop run by staff from the IPO. |
| You said you wanted some information about the copyright exceptions to format shifting consultations | You were contacted and given a detailed response to your queries. |
| Formal Complaints | |
| You said you were unhappy with a patent opinion published on the IPO website. | We said we thought the “opinion” was impartial. If you believed that the opinion was incorrect you could ask for a review and there was still the option of complaining to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. The IPO was unable to agree to your request to withdraw the opinion from the website because the IPO did not have the legal power to withdraw an opinion once it had been issued. |
| You thought that details of your patent had been seen by a third party without your prior knowledge and wanted this apparent breach of security investigated. | We said that it was extremely unlikely that your patent had been seen by a third party and we explained the security measures that were in place. |
| You said that you were unhappy with: the fees the IPO charged for copies of granted patent, the fact that when contacting the IPO the first greeting is in Welsh and also that the CEU record all incoming telephone calls. | We told you all about the fees charged for copies of certain documents. If the greeting in Welsh was confusing our customers then we will consider changing the greeting. We follow strict legal rules if customer’s calls are to be recorded and the IPO complies with these rules, any new customer is informed immediately that phone calls are monitored and recorded for training purposes. |
| You said you were unhappy that a Hearing Officer refused your application because it lacked novelty and your appeal to the High Court was also turned down. | We said there were no further routes of appeal the courts confirmed that the application lacked novelty. The IPO cannot do anything more. You were told that if you were still dissatisfied you could ask your local MP to take up your complaint with the Parliamentary Ombudsman. |
| You said a number of documents were sent with the search report, unfortunately one abstract that was listed in the search report was not sent to you. | We said the process of sending out abstracts with search reports was looked at carefully to try and find out the root cause of this problem. However, the exact cause of this error was not established. A memo has been send to all of the Examining Groups to remind all examiners of best practice when sending abstracts with any search reports. |
| You said you filed a patent application for the Internet in the early 1990’s and felt that other parties were now infringing your patent. | We gave you a summary of the patent process and recommended that you sought legal advice from a patent agent. You were told the IPO offered an Opinions service which would give an opinion on whether your patent had been infringed. Infringement action could be lengthy and expensive and we recommended you consult an agent before starting infringement proceedings. |
| You said you were unhappy because we had not responded to your letters. You were also aggrieved with the Hearing Officer’s decision on your 4 patents | We said that your case would be reviewed and any outstanding correspondence would be dealt with immediately. The Hearing Officer had maintained objections to all four applications, although they felt that one of the applications could be acceptable, with a few amendments. You were told there was a time limit to deal with these amendments if you wanted to proceed with this patent. |
| You said you were unhappy that we abandoned your application. | We said it was our practice to contact customers before abandoning their application and this was not done in this case. We apologized for this oversight and confirmed that the application would be reinstated. |
| You said you were not given important information relating your trade mark and you felt that your application was not dealt with correctly. | We investigated your case and agreed that it could have been handled better. You should have been advised of the new law relating to relative grounds and the effect this would have on your application. We apologized for the way that your case had been handled and a Team Leader would be contacting you immediately to help to progress your application. |
| You said that you wanted to be told details of a particular trade mark and made a freedom of Information request. | We said we could only give you limited information, as the mark had been withdrawn before it was published. Under the 1994 Act, case related information such as the examination report etc cannot be made available for public inspection. |
| You said you were unhappy with the time it was taking to progress your application. You had been told on a number of occasions that the trade mark was ready to be published yet the status on our website showed that it was still at the examination stage. | We apologized for the undue delay and unprofessional way that the office had dealt with your application. We gave you a date when your trade mark would be published and a brief outline of the publication and opposition processes. We informed you we would learn lessons from this issue to enable us to provide higher standards of customer service in the future. |
| You said your application had been published and was coming towards the end of the opposition period yet it had a “Progress Delayed” status against it on our website. This status implied that the progress of the application was being delayed and the opposition period was being extended, when this was clearly not the case. | We said that this status had been given to the application because there was an outstanding classification issue to be resolved before the mark could be registered; this issue has since been resolved. We have no powers to extend the opposition period and accepted that the use of this status could be misleading and changes are being made to clearly explain that the use of this status has no effect on the opposition period. |
| Informal Complaints | |
| You said you were unhappy because you had to wait so long for a response from us. | We apologized for not responding earlier as we were still looking for your correspondence. We asked you to provide us with your new address and details of all of your applications so that they could be updated |
| You said an exam report was not stapled together and resulted in an incomplete report being sent to you. | We explained that all reports are printed out and stapled together, before being sent to our post room. Unfortunately due to a human error a report was not stapled together and some of the report came away and was not sent to you. Staff have been sent a reminder, regarding the importance of stapling these reports together. |
| You said you had difficulty obtaining a copy of an amended specification of a European Patent (UK). | We apologised for the quality of service you had received and we sent you the information that you required. You were told about our procedures for issuing specifications and that our publications manager would check that our procedures were followed for publishing the specification. Further staff training will be taking place to try and improve the service that is provided in this work area. |
| You said that you were unhappy with the wording on the Trade Marks Search and Advisory Report. | We did say in our report that if these similar marks were owned by the applicant they should be ignored. The form has been reviewed and revised to try and avoid this error occurring again in the future. |
| You said you were upset because your application was refused and you still had to pay £200. | We told you that the fee covered the examination process, not simply the registration. |
| You said you had difficulty finding the new notification system information on our website. | We told you where the information could be found on our website and that it had been agreed that this information would be made more prominent on the new website. |
| You said you were unhappy with some of our official letters. | We thanked you for your feedback in relation to names and assignments letters. We have recently made slight amendments to our letters. A project had just begun to look at all the functions of the Register Administration Team to see if any improvements can be made. Your feedback will be considered as part of this review. |
| You said you were unhappy with the results of your patentability search. | We amended your report to address the concerns raised. Examiners responsible for checking cases were reminded of the need to ensure there is sufficient discussion and to look out for any anomalies. |
