Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom)

The Intellectual Property Office of the United Kingdom (often The IPO) is, since 2 April 2007, the operating name of The Patent Office. It is the official government body responsible for intellectual property rights in the UK and is an executive agency of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). Some work on copyright policy is shared with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and plant breeders' rights are administered by the Plant Variety Rights Office, an agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Responsibilities

The IPO also has direct administrative responsibility for examining and issuing or rejecting patents, and maintaining registers of intellectual property including patents, designs and trade marks in the UK. As in most countries, there is no statutory register of copyright such that there is no direct administration required in copyright matters by the IPO.

The Intellectual Property Office is led by the Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, who is also registrar of trade marks, registrar of designs and Chief Executive of the Office. Since 15 February 2010 the Comptroller has been John Alty, following the resignation of Ian Fletcher, who took over after the retirement of Ron Marchant on 30 March 2007. The previous comptroller was Alison Brimelow who was afterwards, between July 2007 and June 2010, President of the European Patent Office.

Substantive duties

The existence of the Patent Office and the post of Comptroller are required by the Patents and Designs Act 1907 (though most of the remainder of this Act has been repealed), but the substantive duties of the Office are set out in other legislation, including:

• The Registered Designs Act 1949
• The Patents Act 1977
• The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
• The Trade Marks Act 1994

All of the above legislation has been amended extensively since it was first passed.

Location

Since 1991, the IPO has had its headquarters in Newport, South Wales, but a small branch office in London has been maintained for the benefit of the large professional community based there and for communication with central government.

On 1 October 2008, the position of the Company Names Adjudicator was introduced under the Companies Act 2006. The Company Names Adjudicator's powers are enforced through the Company Names Tribunal which forms part of the Intellectual Property Office.

Looking up early British patents

Before 1916 British patent numbers returned to one at the beginning of each year. The number format used for them on Espacenet® is GByyyynnnnn where yyyy is the full four-digit year and nnnnn is the five-digit number. If the number has less than five digits you need to add zeroes at the beginning to make it five digits, so that for instance patent number 154 of 1905 is recorded on Espacenet® as GB190500154. In 1916 a continuous number series began, starting with GB100001. If you have a patent number with five digits or less and no year is given there is unfortunately no easy way on Espacenet to retrieve all patents with that number. You will have to try searching by applicant and/or subject, or if you have the patience try each year in turn in the format above. Although it is less common, it is also possible that a number with five digits or less may refer to a British application number, assigned from 1916 on to patent applications in their early pre-publication stages and also numbered starting with one at the beginning of each year. These are often searchable on Espacenet® in the same format as above in the "application number" field, but again they are extremely difficult to trace if the year is not given.

See also

• Copyright law of the United Kingdom
• Departments of the United Kingdom Government
• Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA)
• Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (ITMA)
• Intellectual Property Regulation Board (IPReg)
• IP Federation (formerly the "Trade Marks, Patents and Designs Federation" or TMPDF)
• Patents County Court (PCC)
• Patent office
• Software patents under United Kingdom patent law
• Company Names Tribunal

External links

• Intellectual Property Office
• UK Patents Act 1977 and Rules
• British Library help locating patents
• European patent database search, includes GB patents