The UK Intellectual Property Office launched its Patent Opinions Service some twenty years ago with the aim of providing businesses with a quick and affordable assessment of patent validity or infringement.  Whilst these Patent Opinions are non-binding, they have proven to provide a low cost route to resolving patent disputes quickly (Opinions are issued within three months of a request).

For SME’s the cost of patent litigation can be daunting, often begging the question, what is the point of a patent if it costs so much to enforce?  The Patent Opinions Service allows the strength of an infringement or validity case to be tested quickly and at modest cost.  Whilst Patent Opinions are non-binding, they can be very useful in focusing the minds of parties to a potential patent dispute.

One way the Patent Opinions Service can really assist SMEs is in revocation actions.  Where the UK IPO issues a Patent Opinion which finds that a patent is invalid, the IPO may then decide to revoke the patent on its own initiative, thereby saving the SME the time, trouble and expense of bringing a revocation action.

A feature of the Patent Opinion Service, which can be very useful to businesses contemplating entering a market where third parties own patents, is that the party requesting the Opinion can remain anonymous.  In many cases the party named as the requester for an Opinion is a patent attorney firm.