Intellectual Property Office
We have reviewed our service standards for 2024-25 to ensure that they continue to meet customer needs and are reported in a more standardised way.
We know how important our quality of service is to our customers. So over the last year we have been developing a measure to assess the quality of our work. We will assess quality across the examination process in Trade Marks and Designs and searches, examinations and amendments in Patents. We are now in a position to be able to publish our quality performance and will do so on a quarterly basis from July 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 | May 2024 performance | June 2024 performance |
| Customer Support Centre We will answer telephone calls to the Customer Support 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 99% in 60 secs Emails 100% in 5 days | Calls 99% 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 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 9 working days International Trade Marks: 90% completed in 9 working days Designs: 90% completed in 7 working days International designs: 90% completed in 9 working days | Trade Marks: 90% completed in 9 working days International Trade Marks: 90% completed in 10 working days Designs: 90% completed in 9 working days International designs: 90% completed in 12 working days |
| Patents Preliminary Examination Assessment of procedural and non-technical aspects of a patent application. We will complete all preliminary examinations 20 working days of the applications filing date. | 90% completed in 14 working days | 90% completed in 16 working days |
| Patent Search We will issue all search reports within 6 months from request. | 90% completed in 6 months and 3 days | 90% completed in 6 months and 5 days |
| Patent Examination Full substantive examination of legal and technical aspects of a patent application. We will perform patent examinations within 42 months of the priority date. | 90% completed in 48 months and 16 days | 90% completed in 52 months and 2 days |
| Patent Acceleration We will deal with all requests for accelerated processing within 2 months of receipt. | 90% within 2 months | 90% within 2 months |
| Trade mark and Designs Ex-parte hearing decisions We will issue a hearings report within 10 working days of a trade mark or design ex parte hearing. Example of differences between ex parte and inter partes hearings. | 90% of hearing reports issued in 10 working days | 90% of hearing reports issued in 10 working days |
| Inter-Partes Hearing Decisions We will issue formal decisions in trade mark, design and patent cases within 3 months of the hearing. If no hearing takes place the decision will be issued within 3 months of all submissions being filed or the deadline date. See wording below table | 90% of decisions issued in 8 months and 27 days | 90% of decisions issued in 8 months and 16 days |
| Register Requests We will action requests to correct names and addresses and record registrable transactions (such as a change of owner) 10 working days of receipt. | Patents: 3 working days Trade Marks and Designs: 90% completed in 5 working days | Patents: 6 working days Trade Marks and Designs: 90% completed in 5 working days |
Quality performance
| Patent searches, examinations and amendments | 98% |
| Trade mark examinations | 95% |
| Design examinations | 100% |
The IPO Tribunals are currently managing a significant backlog of cases.This followed unprecedented levels of demand which arose for specific reasons throughout 2022 and 2023.We acknowledge the resulting delays and thank users for their patience.We are working hard to eliminate the backlog and return to performance in line with the customer service standard over the next 18-24 months.