Intellectual Property Office: Performance Targets

Thursday 30th March 2017 Written Statements

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)]

As an Executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, we set targets which are agreed by Ministers and laid before Parliament. For 2017-18 our targets are:

We will have ratified the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement for international registration of designs by 31 March 2018 and be in a position to launch the service on 6 April 2018 (the common commencement date).

We will publish 90% of acceptable applications for national trade marks for opposition within 90 days of filing.

We will offer faster handling of patent applications, by providing an examination report with a search report when both are requested at the application date, and meeting at least 90% of requests for an accelerated two-month turnaround for search, publication and examination.

We will ensure that overall customer satisfaction is at least 80%.

We will work with industry and enforcement partners to build a co-ordinated response to the growth of illicit streaming, including robust analysis of current legal sanctions and developing proposals for change as appropriate.

We will increase the number of businesses that better understand how to manage their IP: at least 35% of an expected 100,000 businesses we reach will make an informed decision regarding management of their IP.

We will provide market-specific IP advice to 5000 current and prospective British exporters. As part of this work, we will deliver bespoke one-to-one business support activity to at least 200 companies annually.

We will demonstrate our commitment to diversity by securing external validation for our approach to inclusion for under-represented groups.

We will achieve return of capital employed of at least 4%.

We will deliver an efficiency gain of 3.5%.

[HCWS575]