UK IPO open day: Who is on the other side?
Chartered Trade Mark Attorney Alessandra Naia takes us behind the scenes at the UK IPO at their recent open day.
Alessandra and Alex Sparkes, trade marks examination team manager
Who is on the other side of the screen? This is what we have all been wondering in these days of working remotely and catching up on Teams or other communications platforms.
Well, the UK IPO’s open day answered this exact question: who – and what - is on the other side when we are dealing with the UKIPO?
The welcoming
In a cloudy, grey and rainy Newport, the day started with a nice and warm welcoming from Alex Sparkes, Team Manager in the Trade Marks Examination Group.
Alex personally welcomed each of the participants, a variegated group of 15 people with mixed ages and a variety of backgrounds and experiences.
Some members of the group were newly qualified, but we were also joined by more experienced professionals.
Last UK IPO open day took place pre-pandemic, in 2019 (we reported on that here), but Alex was able to organide the day as if he has always been doing it.
Coffee, tea and biscuits were ready for us to start the day with the right mood.
The agenda
The day was organised around three sessions in the morning and four in the afternoon.
We started with a presentation by Oliver Morris, Deputy Director, who has worked at the UK IPO since 1991.
Oliver gave us an overall update on the trade marks division. It was impressive to hear how much Brexit impacted on the office workload, especially at the end of the transition period.
For example, he drew attention to the statistic that over 1 million comparable marks and over 300,000 designs have been created and placed in the UK register.
The pandemic too has been a real challenge, with the number of new filings and demand levels raising exponentially between 2019 and 2021.
Additional examiners, case workers and hearing officers have been recruited over the last 18 months: as a result, the UK IPO has cleared its examination backlog and the situation is now more stable.
The second morning session was with Ollie Rose-Meyer and Edward Smith, ex-parte hearing officers. They gave us an overview of the hearings process, with tips for case presentation and for overcoming objections.
The final morning session was with inter-partes hearing officers Nathan Abraham, Mark King and Rosie Le Breton.
Their very insightful presentation provided an overview on the tribunal structure and volume, as well tips on pleadings, dos/don’ts for filing submissions and evidence in opposition proceedings and revocation actions, making applications such as extensions of time and cross-examination.
In the afternoon we were split into two groups to rotate between two sessions: one was “meet some TM examiners” (with Katarina Tarhoviska, David Prosser, JM Davies, Chelsea Merrett, Alex Miller, Jayne Cooks, Rachel Hooper) where we had the chance to meet who is examining the trade marks and design applications that we are filing and to understand how their data base system works.
The second session was “meet some tribunal caseworkers” with Lynda Stephens & Craig Ashill, who provided us with an overview on what the Tribunal does.
The two participant groups then reunited together again for a quick session with the IPO customer care manager Alicia Evans.
Finally, Simeon Bowen provided us with an overview of the great “Transformation” programme over the coming years, laying out its vision and objectives.
Transformation is the UK IPO plan to improve the way it delivers its service to customers, aiming to develop a single integrated system for all IP rights and for the services provided to be fast, flexible, high-quality, using a seamless experience across all different IP rights.
These changes will take place over a short delivery time, posing its own challenges: the launch of the new Patent interface is planned to take place in 2024 and for trade marks we just have to wait until 2025.
Throughout the whole day there was space for questions and clarifications, but we concluded the day with a dedicated final Q&A Panel Session moderated by Oliver Morris.
It was a sort of “Ask the Office what you never dared asking: now or never again”. Joking aside, we had the chance to satisfy our curiosity around few subjects including the popular metaverse and NFTs topic.
The takeaways
The time in the day went faster than expected and I gathered many takeaways. If I had to pick just three, I would say:
- The chance to meet the hearing officer and examiners face to face and to see who is on the other side has been the best aspect. Most of the hearing ffficers who gave us the presentations had also lunch with us. This was a nice occasion to have a nice informal chat and to really see the people behind the official role.
- The message that has been passed on, namely that we are always allowed and welcomed to be in touch, dialogue with the office and receive assistance on the practical issues, questions or doubts that might arise during the routinary day-to-day work on trade mark and design matters.
- The chance to touch with hand what the UK IPO looks like and replace the abstract image I had in my mind with a real place. This, I think, will somehow change my approach with the Office, as now I feel like as “I know, what’s on the other side”.
I would say a big thank you to the UK IPO and of course to Alex, who organised the day to be a great experience for all of us.
I would truly encourage my colleagues to attend the next open days that will be organized in the future. I hope that future attendance will not be limited to newly qualified Trade Mark Attorneys, as also those with more experience might benefit from taking the chance to meet face to face with hearing officers and examiners.