GovWire

Transparency data: IPO customer service standards

Intellectual Property Office

February 27
09:03 2024

We are currently meeting, or exceeding, many 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 December 2023
performance
January 2024
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:
90% completed in 10 working days

International Trade Marks:
90% completed in 9 working days

Designs:
90% completed in 9 working days

International designs:
90% completed in 8 working days
Trade Marks:
90% completed in 12 working days

International Trade Marks:
90% completed in 11 working days

Designs:
90% completed in 11 working days

International designs:
90% completed in 10 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.
97% issued within 4 weeks 97% issued within 4 weeks
Patent Search
We will issue search reports within 6 months from request.
90% completed in 6 months and 9 days 90% completed in 6 months and 11 days
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.
90% completed in 45 months and 9 days 90% completed in 45 months and 24 days
Patent Acceleration
We will deal with all requests for accelerated processing within 2 months of receipt.
92% within 2 months 97% 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 (5 working days)

Average time to issue decision:
19 weeks and 4 days (97 working days)
Average time to issue hearing report:
5 days (4 working days)

Average time to issue decision:
22 weeks and 5 days (110 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 and 5 days (5 working day)

Trade Marks and Designs:
2 weeks (7 working days)
Patents:
1 week and 1 day (6 working day)


Trade Marks and Designs:
2 weeks (10 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% [Q2 2023-24] 87% [Q2 2023-24]
Published 9 July 2014
Last updated 27 February 2024 +show all updates
  1. January 2024 performance review added.

  2. December 2023 performance review added.

  3. November 2023 performance review added.

  4. Updated customer service standards for September and October 2023.

  5. Customer performance for September 2023 added.

  6. August 2023 performance rating added.

  7. Performance for July 2023 added.

  8. June 2023 performance added.

  9. April and May 2023 performance review added.

  10. March 2023 performance added.

  11. January and February 2023 performance review added.

  12. Update to December call perfo

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: