Plans for 'superfast' patent processing service dropped by IPO amidst stakeholder concerns

The IPO had consulted on developing a new service that would have been able to "deliver patents in just 90 days", according to Business Secretary Vince Cable. Businesses hoping to gain UK patents for their inventions would have had to pay between £3,500 and £4,000 approximately on top of usual patent application fees to benefit from the accelerated procedure.

However, responses to the proposals were "mixed", the IPO said, with demand for the premium service in question

"While some respondents were generally in support of the proposed service, many raised serious concerns," the IPO said in its response to the consultation.

"[The serious concerns raised] in particular [were that there would be] a higher risk of granting invalid patents, creating uncertainty for both patent holders and third parties; an increased burden on third parties to monitor applications and make observations in a severely shortened timeframe; a risk that rapid grant would be perceived as advantageous, when in fact it could be damaging, due to early publication in particular; payment of a large fee for a service which offers very little real advantage over existing free acceleration options, which already meet business needs (and are capable of delivering grant in as little as 6½ months)," it said.

"For these reasons and others, there appeared to be very little likely demand for the service. Furthermore, some respondents suggested that introduction of the service could potentially impact on the IPO’s reputation for delivering affordable, high quality patents. Following careful consideration of the responses received and the specific concerns raised, the Government has decided not to implement the proposed superfast service, or to make any changes to the IPO’s existing acceleration services," the IPO said.

Although some measures could have been built into the system to "overcome or mitigate" some of the perceived problems with such an accelerated patent processing procedure, the IPO conceded that it would not be able to guard against the risk of granting invalid patents through the process that would need to be subsequently amended or revoked.

"This is an unavoidable consequence of granting a patent in such a short timescale when the patent system worldwide is based on a standard publication period of 18 months," it said. "This issue was arguably of most concern to consultation respondents, due to the uncertainty it could cause for both patent holders and third parties."