IPO stops inventor-notification when mentioned in a patent application

Important reminder for all inventors that have patents in the UK: From 1 September 2016 the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) will stop notifying inventors when they have been mentioned in a patent application. 

From 1 September 2016 on the Office will no longer send inventors copies of patent form 7s, the IPO stated on Friday. In May the IPO already discussed with their stakeholders about future notifications for inventors that are not also patent applicants. Though IPO will stop sending notifications to those inventors, there is no proposed change to the way the Intellectual Property Office communicates with inventors who are also applicants.

Numerous reasons to stop the notifications

The IPO argues that there are a number of reasons why they are considering this change:

• we are no longer legally obliged to notify inventors of their inclusion in a patent application
• the majority of inventors are already aware of their inclusion in an application. Many are employed by the applicant, or have assigned or agreed to assign, their right to be granted a patent
• we have evidence that a number of inventors have been confused by our existing notifications, incorrectly assuming they have to respond in some way
• we currently only notify inventors in applications which do not claim priority from an earlier application. This results in different processing depending on the type of application and we would like to standardise our approach in this area

Source:

IPO-Press Release on www.Gov.uk