The UK Patent Office has received just 1000 online patent applications in the first year of its the e-filing system which went live in August 2004.
In a typical year the Patent Office receives 30,000 applications, of which about 17,000 are searched. Only about 11,500 are examined of which about 8,000 are granted. In take-up terms, there's a very long way to go before the Patent Office achieves a meaningful usership of the service - if 96% of the applications are not using the service. It's the classic example of an excellent e-Government service planned, built, switched-on and then not used in volume. Without serious, sustained marketing and assertive management of take-up stimulation through promotion and marketing, it is highly likely that usership growth will not rise strongly.
What will drive take-up to 30-40% of the target audience? Different promotion/marketing tactics to current ones, that's certain. Marketing tactics should be funded and implemented to drive linear month-on-month take-up growth towards a meaningful target figure.
In the private sector, even back in dot-com bubble days of the year 2000, a 4% take-up figure for a large service like this would see the board revise a take-up monitoring & growth-driving plan. Back in 2000, the backers would by now be getting very worried that their investment was not paying off... The current Patent Office approach for driving take-up of online filing would seem to require a visible sense of usership-growth urgency and adrenaline injected, pronto.
To help new customers with e filing, joint training days are being arranged for October 2005 and details of these will appear on the Office website shortly. Whether this is enough remains to be seen.
The 1000th application was made by Alec Messulam of solicitors A Messulam & Co of Watford in July using the epoline service. The system was introduced by the UK Patent Office to provide a secure and attractive e business channel for customers to apply for patents.
The online service also allows applicants to file European applications for the European Patent Office or international applications for the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva.
Sean Dennehey, Director of Patents the Patent Office, welcomed the development: "I am delighted that we have reached 1,000 electronically filed patent applications within a year of the system’s launch. This shows the value of our continuing commitment to provide our customers with electronic services. The cooperation between the European Patent Office and the UK Patent Office has enable us to provide a reliable and efficient option for filing patent applications in the 21st century."
The UK Patent Office's epoline system uses software created by the European Patent Office amended to handle UK as well as European & International applications. The service was launched last summer on 9 August 2004.
Quelle: PublicTechnology, 15.08.2005
