For the whole decision click here: o19010
Summary
Application GB0919324.4 was filed on 23 April 2009 in the name of Nenad Paunovic. The application was filed under Section 89A (3) of the Act 1977, requesting entry to the UK national phase for international application PCT/RS2007/000008. The international application has an international filing date of 16 March 2007 and an earliest priority date of 16 March 2006. The prescribed period for entry to the National Phase therefore expired on 16 October 2008.
As that date was missed, reinstatement was the only option available to the applicant if he wished to proceed. A Form 14 was therefore filed requesting reinstatement under s.20A and r.32.
The applicant’s case for reinstatement is based on arguments that he had sought funds to finance the protection of his patent, but all his attempts had failed. He was aware that he had to enter the UK national phase within a particular time, but he didn’t know how much it cost. The applicant was resident in Serbia, so he had made enquiries to the Serbian national patent office about the cost and he took the opportunity to check on the date by which he had to pay the fee. He was wrongly told the fee was much higher than it actually turned out to be and that the period for filing was longer than it actually was. He only found out the true cost too late but he said that had he have known it at the correct time, he would have paid it. It was always his intention to enter the UK national phase on time.
The determination to be made under s.20A is that the Comptroller shall reinstate the application if he is “satisfied that the failure to comply [with s. 89A(3) in this case] …was unintentional”.
The HO found that despite his underlying intention to enter the application into the UK national phase on time and despite the wrong information he had been given, the applicant’s final decision not to comply with the deadline set under Section 89A(3) and Rule 66)1)(b) was still a conscious one. Although he had unfortunately been wrongly advised, the applicant always knew the fee had to be paid by a prescribed time and even after the wrongly advised later date had passed, that he could not pay it. As such the failure to comply cannot have been unintentional. The request to reinstate the application was therefore refused.