The IPO's patent renewal service has been pinned as an exemplar for the GDS' digital transformation agenda. CSW takes a look at the service's journey from a paper-based process to a champion of digital change
Before this summer, renewing a patent was a time-consuming business. Holders are required to renew on the fourth anniversary of the original filing date and every year thereafter. The previous paper-based process, by the admission of the overseeing agency, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), suffered from a high level of mistakes. Fiona Evans, product owner at the IPO says: “The majority of these errors are due to incorrect fees, primarily because the fee structure is complicated with incremental fees and late payments.”
By 2011, the IPO had already shifted a number of its transactional service online, including applying for and renewing a trademark. Applying for a patent renewal remained the number one service requested by customers to join them. And the move made sense for the office itself – 7% of patent-related calls to its service centre were for help with paper renewals, with around half of these just to check the date of renewal and the fee which would be required.
The IPO got lucky – in 2012, just as its own research identified a big appetite among customers for change, the patent renewal service was included on the list of 25 top transactional services produced by the Government Digital Service (GDS), which would become exemplars for digital transformation. This status helped bring resources to the project which would otherwise have been unavailable.
The IPO already boasted its own in-house ICT infrastructure and customer insight staff, and a decision was taken that they would carry out the work to move patent renewal online, with oversight from GDS. One of the first decisions was to locate this team together. Service manager for patent renewals at the IPO, Geoff Court, says: “We had customer insight guys, business reps and IT staff on difference floors within the IPO. When you co-locate the project team if developers have a question of clarification or an impediment to raise they can do so immediately across the desk. It speeds up the whole process.”
The second crucial move was to adopt an “agile” approach to the project management. Court says the methodology was new to the team, but was aided by the onsite presence of an agile coach provided by GDS. He says: “Historically government departments have built what they think the customers want rather than engaging with them throughout development. We used agile engagement to consider customer needs and drive the service development.”
The team employed automated testing, which identified problems by using software to send thousands of queries to the site during development.
The agile approach meant that, as the project developed, customers and staff were recruited to test the emerging platform. Evans says: “Continuous engagement with customers in the alpha and private beta phases meant that we had qualitative feedback on user and technical issues that were effectively managed and resolved before the service was available to the wider customer base.”
The high-profile nature of the project also led to the IPO deciding to ring-fence the resources dedicated to patent renewal transformation, meaning that staff could not be pulled off the project to help deal with other issues.
The team also employed automated testing, which identified problems by using software to send thousands of queries to the site during development. Court says that despite the time this element took to set up, it led to a better end product. Evans says: “the lessons learned are being used by all projects going forward in our own digital transformation portfolio of projects”.
As part of the exemplar process, the team faced an assessment of the public beta against 26 assessment criteria by the GDS (a requirement no longer required). Prior to the formal assessment, the GDS offered a ‘mock’ examination, which Court says helped focus minds by highlighting areas for improvement. He says: “It is fair to say the first assessment we were surprised by the level of detail that was required – we were not expecting that.”
The website incorporates a number of features which are helping reduce stress on the IPO’s service centre. Firstly, it users can check the status of the patent they wish to renew. For non-renewable patents, clear error messaging has been established. And if the renewal is not due, the earliest valid date is calculated and displayed.
An automatic fee calculator displays the cost of the renewal plus any late fee due – previously working the amount due was a complicated business, according to Court. Once the renewal is submitted, an immediate email, acknowledging receipt is generated followed by an email once payment has cleared, containing a receipt. Evans says: “Renewing using the paper form often meant customers would ring to see if their renewal had been received, an area of avoidable contact, which we were keen to address.”
UK patents are prized by companies the world over, and for international users a 24/7 renewal service has major benefits.
In addition, the site incorporates a website analytical tool which monitors key metrics on website use. The tool is used to identify where customers are dropping out of the site, and devise service enhancements based on this experience. The team admits it underestimated the work involved in embedding the solution, and has now revisited and enhanced the way it uses analytics software.
Customer benefits include the ability to file 10 renewals in a single submission. The IPO estimates that printing out and filling in a form then taking it to the post office used to take around 10 minutes, whereas the new system takes on average of four minutes. It also says that the simplicity of the service has reduced the need for external professional support from lawyers and accountants.
UK patents are prized by companies the world over, and for international users a 24/7 renewal service has major benefits. Monitoring shows that around a quarter of the renewals submitted online since launch are from 49 countries outside of Britain. Court says: “Because of our international customer base we were expecting a good proportion to use the service, but not so quickly.”
Chartered patent lawyer Mark Baldwin, director of legal firm Firebird IP, says that the website has particularly helped with speeding up his service to foreign clients. He says: “Doing it online means you don’t need to print off umpteen copies and transport them – previously if I was on a short deadline, I would have to take them to the IPO office in person.” He adds that the approach the IPO has taken has been very customer-friendly.
According to Court, the lessons learnt on the project – along with much of the technology developed - have now been embedded in the IPO’s business processes. And he is certain that employing full-time staff led to a better result than would otherwise have been the case. He says: “We were quite privileged to have all the technical skills in house. I would say to other departments which have to get digital skills in from outside that it is critical that senior officials with knowledge of the business and customers are embedded with the technical team. You can’t lose that direction.”
Evans says that the IPO has targeted a cumulative total of 40,000 renewals shifting online in the next three years. However, the popularity of the site has led to a large increase in the number of patents filed online – up from 575 to 1,622 between April and October. Evans says: “We have seen a big shift initially so we might hit the target sooner.”