The
UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has announced that trade
mark applicants will be able to pay £300 to cut the waiting time
for an examination of the trade mark from a month or more to 10
days.
"This will help us turn around trade mark applications more
quickly while still providing our customers with a very high
quality service," said Ian Fletcher, chief executive of the UKIPO.
"We also want to look at other ways of speeding up the process for
registering trade marks."
Lee Curtis, a trade mark attorney at Pinsent Masons, the law
firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said that the scheme has limited value,
though.
"Getting a trade mark can take anywhere between six months and a
few years. This proposal only reduces that by a few weeks, so will
not make a massive difference to the total wait that applicants
face. It just means that you pay £300 for an examination within 10
days," said Curtis.
"I don't know that it will be a huge success because an
application still has to go through the whole process – including a
three-month advertising process – which is unchanged by this
fast-track option," he said.
The Government carried out a consultation on the plan, and one
respondent raised similar questions to Curtis's, according to a
Government consultation document.
"Two respondents questioned the value of the service (one
suggested there was no value at all) without an accompanying
reduction in the 3 month opposition period," said the Government
response to the consultation process. "This observation was made
because the time saving inherent in the proposed fast-track service
was only a very small part of the overall length of time to secure
a registration. One of these respondents made similar observations
in relation to the time period that elapses between acceptance and
publication."
The Government is proceeding with the plan, though, which is its
interpretation of a recommendation in the Gowers Report into
intellectual property. The Report was published in late 2006 by
former Financial Times editor Andrew Gowers on behalf of the
Treasury.
The process will add £300 to existing trade mark application
costs, as outlined in UKIPO guidance. "This is on top of the
standard application fee of £200 and any classes fees (£50 per
class)," it said. "For example, a fast-track application containing
two classes will cost £550 (fast-track fee £300, application fee
£200 & one additional class fee of £50)."
The new system will come into force on 7 April this
year.
