Patent decision

BL number

O/181/09

Concerning rights in

GB 2341616

Hearing Officer

Mr G J Rose'Meyer

Decision date

30 June 2009

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Mr Stanley Patrick Doyle

Provisions discussed

PA Act 1977 Section 28(3)

Keywords

Restoration

Related Decisions

None

Summary

This decision concerned whether the patent in suit should be restored following a failure to pay the renewal fee. Mr. Doyle’s case was that it was never his intention to allow the patent to lapse irrevocably, however due to financial difficulties and the serious illness of his wife during the relevant period when the renewal fee could have been paid, he missed the deadline for payment. The IPO’s view was that the evidence provided by Mr. Doyle showed that the failure to pay the renewal fee on time was not “unintentional” as required by the law.

The HO found that the evidence showed that Mr Doyle had not intended for his patent to lapse irrevocably, but affected by financial problems and the illness of his wife, he had taken the decision to (in his words) “buy time by allowing the Patents to lapse for a while”. The HO found that it was not an unreasonable position to adopt to defer renewal and indeed that the law caters for it in section 25(4) by offering a six month “period of grace” in which to pay the renewal fee late, albeit with additional fines the longer one waits. However, this period cannot be extended beyond the six month grace period. Mr Boyle was probably unaware of this (the evidence was silent on this point), but nevertheless the fact was that he failed to renew within that statutory period. The evidence showed that his decision to defer payment was a conscious one and as such the failure to pay the renewal fee on time could not be found to have been “unintentional”.

Therefore the HO had no option but to refuse the application for restoration.