GovWire

Transparency data: IPO customer service standards

Intellectual Property Office

October 5
11:28 2022

Intellectual Property Office corporate priorities 2022 to 2023

Details

We are currently meeting, or exceeding, several of our customer service standards. However, unprecedented demand continues to impact timescales in some areas. We are working hard to address any delays by recruiting and training additional staff and improving the efficiency of our processes.

More detail about our activities can be found in our Corporate Priorities.

Service Standard July 2022 performance August 2022 performance
Information Centre
We will answer telephone calls to the Information Centre within 60 seconds. We will respond to all written enquiries within 5 working days (measurement excludes enquiries transferred to specialist teams for a direct response).
Calls
98% in 60 secs

Emails
100% in 5 days
Calls
98% in 60 secs

Emails
100% in 5 days
Trade Mark and Designs Examination
We will issue the first report on trade mark and designs domestic and international cases within 2 weeks (10 working days) from the date it is ready to be examined. An application is ready to be examined once it has been filed with us and we have issued a filing receipt.
Trade Marks:
1 week and 6 days (9 working days)

International Trade Marks:
1 week and 5 days (8 working days)

Designs:
4 weeks (20 working days)


International designs:
4 weeks and 4 days (22 working days)
Trade Marks:
1 week and 4 days (8 working days)

International Trade Marks:
2 weeks and 1 day (10 working days)

Designs:
4 weeks and 3 days (10 working days)

International designs:
3 weeks and 3 days (17 working days)
Patents Preliminary Examination
Assessment of procedural and non-technical aspects of a patent application. We will complete all preliminary examinations within 4 weeks (20 working days) of the applications filing date.
85% issued within 4 weeks 93% issued within 4 weeks
Patent Search
We will issue search reports within 6 months from request.
95% completed in 9 months and 4 days 95% completed in 8 months
Patent Examination
Full substantive examination of legal and technical aspects of a patent application.
We will perform patent examinations within 3.5 years [42 months] of the priority date.
95% completed in 42 months and 28 days 95% completed in 43 months and 22 days
Patent Acceleration
We will deal with all requests for accelerated processing within 2 months of receipt.
97% within 2 months 99% within 2 months
Hearing Decisions
We will issue a hearings report: within 2 weeks (10 working days) of a trade mark or design ex parte hearing, and/or we will issue formal decisions in trade mark, design and patent cases (ex parte and inter partes) within 12 weeks of the hearing. If no hearing takes place the decision will be issued within 12 weeks of all submissions being filed or the deadline date.

Example of differences between ex parte and inter partes hearings.
Average time to issue hearing report:
1 week and 1 day (6 working days)

Average time to issue decision:
8 weeks and 6 days (43 working days)
Average time to issue hearing report:
1 week (5 working days)


Average time to issue decision:
8 weeks and 6 days (44 working days)
Register Requests
We will action requests to correct names and addresses and record registrable transactions (such as a change of owner) within 2 weeks (10 working days) of receipt.
Patents:
1 week (5 working days)

Trade Marks and Designs:
5 days (3 working days)
Patents:
3 days (3 working days)

Trade Marks and Designs:
1 week and 1 day (5 working days)
Customer Satisfaction
Average overall satisfaction with the IPO of 85% Customer satisfaction is not measured on a monthly basis. The figure reflects performance in our most recent customer survey.
87% [Q1 2022-23] 87% [Q1 2022-23]
Published 9 July 2014
Last updated 5 October 2022 +show all updates
  1. August 2022 performance rating added.

  2. Performance for July 2022 added.

  3. Performance for June 2022 added.

  4. May 2022 performance added.

  5. Performance for April 2022 added.

  6. March 2022 performance added.

  7. February 2022 performance added.

Related Articles

Comments

  1. We don't have any comments for this article yet. Why not join in and start a discussion.

Write a Comment

Your name:
Your email:
Comments:

Post my comment

Recent Comments

Follow Us on Twitter

Share This


Enjoyed this? Why not share it with others if you've found it useful by using one of the tools below: