Intellectual Property renewal service goes digital

A new digital renewals service that reduces bulk renewal time for IP rights from 5 days to 5 minutes has now been opened up to all customers by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

Customers who need to renew a registered design can do so online. Customers can also renew up to 1,500 IP rights - including combinations of patents, trademarks and designs - in a single digital transaction. The IPO say that they will bring forward these design principles to their One IPO Transformation Programme, which will provide a single, integrated system for all registered IP rights.

See: Renew a patent, trade mark or registered design - https://www.gov.uk/renew-patent-trademark-registered-design

Intellectual Property Office launches digital IP renewal service

Following a successful trial period, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has officially launched their new digital renewals service: https://www.gov.uk/renew-patent-trademark-registered-design.

The online service offers IPO's customers a way to renew up to 1,500 intellectual property (IP) rights in a single digital transaction. These rights include combinations of patents, trademarks and designs.

The service offers several benefits to the IPO's customers. It:

• streamlines the bulk renewals process
• provides instant validation of renewal applications
• eliminates errors resulting from a manual process

Customers also benefit from automated electronic delivery of correspondence and receipts, certificates, and ability to complete transactions at the time and place that suits them.

The renewals service offers a taster of what you can expect from the IPO in future. As part of their One IPO Transformation Programme (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/one-ipo-transformation-prospectus/one-ipo-transformation-prospectus), work is underway to develop a single, integrated system for all registered IP rights. The new, paper-free system would allow IP owners to access all IPO's services through one digital account, and easily manage all of their IP rights in one place.

For updates about the IPO's transformation programme, you can email transformation@ipo.gov.uk.