Patent decision

BL number

O/399/09

Concerning rights in

GB 0225836.6

Hearing Officer

Mrs C A Farrington

Decision date

23 December 2009

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

Mr. Ibrahim Ghulam Murad Ali, Mr Jamal Kashani, Mr Mehdi Farzpourmachiani and Mr Ali Farzpourmachiani

Provisions discussed

PA Act 1977 Section 20(A), rule 36A of the Patents Rules 1995 (as amended), (now rule 32 of the Patent Rules 2007)

Keywords

Reinstatement

Related Decisions

None

Summary

Mr Ali had been authorised to deal with all aspects of this application. The application proceeded normally until the issue of a second examination report under s.18(3) on 30th November 2005. The reply date to this was 2nd May 2006 but no response was received by that date. The application was therefore treated as having been refused at the end of the compliance period of 29th January 2007. A Form 14 requesting reinstatement was subsequently filed on 26th July 2007.

Section 20A states that Comptroller shall reinstate the application if “…he is satisfied that the failure to comply …was unintentional”. However, before this can be decided the rules require that the request should be made within 2 months of the removal of the cause of the non compliance. This was the point in dispute between the Office and the applicants.

The Office’s view was that Mr Ali had received a fax from a co-applicant on 5th May 2006 advising him of the deadline and he took no action. This was therefore the date of removal of the cause of non compliance and the request was therefore filed outside the permitted time. The applicants’ case was that the cause of non compliance with the deadline of 2nd May 2006 was Mr Ali’s preoccupation with the serious illness of his father who subsequently died. He was unable to properly deal with his business affairs until some months after his father’s death and the removal of the cause therefore only occurred on 4th June 2007 when he enquired as to the status of the application. It was therefore filed in time.

The HO found that the evidence showed that whilst Mr Ali had intended to comply, he believed he had missed the opportunity to do so on late receipt of the fax from his co-applicant. His preoccupation with the illness of his father meant he inadvertently failed to return to the issue of what else could be done. This was the cause of the non compliance. Therefore the point at which Mr Ali found himself in a position to properly address this matter and the removal of the cause of non compliance was 4th June 2007. She found the request to reinstate was therefore filed in time. The HO therefore went on to consider if the failure to comply was unintentional. For similar reasons, she found that it was. The request for reinstatement was therefore allowed.