Patent decision

BL number

O/049/08

Concerning rights in

GB 0305884.9

Hearing Officer

Mr R C Kennell

Decision date

20 February 2008

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Robert Vincent Backhouse

Provisions discussed

PA 1977 section 20A, PR 1995 rule 36A

Keywords

Reinstatement

Related Decisions

None

Summary

The applicant applied for reinstatement after being informed by the Office on 9 May 2007 that his patent application had been treated as refused for failure to reply to an examination report of 30 June 2003. Refusing the application, the hearing officer held (i) that the application for reinstatement had been filed within the time limit prescribed by rule 36A (ie two months from the date of removal of the cause of non-compliance, this being regarded as the date when the applicant received the Office’s subsequent letter of 24 July 2007 advising him what he had to do in order to proceed); but (ii) the failure to reply was not unintentional as required by section 20A(2). The applicant’s allegation that he never received the examination report was contradicted by an e-mail of 13 January 2004 in which he said that he was preparing a response to the report and was aware of the time limit of 9 August 2004 for reply. In the absence of any convincing explanation, the hearing officer held that on the balance of probabilities the applicant was aware of the need to reply by the due date but had decided not to bother.