Important notice of closure

This notice is to advise you that the trade mark Search and Advice service provided by the Intellectual Property Office closed on 12 December 2008. The reason for this is that demand for this service has declined over a period of time and the cost of its provision has become unsustainable.

Any requests for this service received by 12 December will be processed as normal. This does not affect any part of the UK trade marks application process.

We do, of course, remain committed to providing information to customers before they make a decision on whether to make an application to register a trade mark. Our Central Enquiry Unit staff will be happy to provide general guidance on registrability and information can also be found on our website which includes a free search facility. You may also like to know that we are currently looking at providing a new pre-application service offering a number of options to customers, possibly from late 2009, and will post any further information on our web site in due course.

If you have any queries about this notice, then please contact our Central Enquiry Unit on 0845 9 500 505 or e-mail enquiries@ipo.gov.uk

Outside the United Kingdom (UK): +44 (0)1633 813930
Minicom (text phone): 08459 222 250
Fax: +44 (0)1633 817777