Opinions
If you are involved in a dispute with someone else about infringement of a patent or the validity of a patent and want to try to resolve this without getting involved in full legal proceedings, you might want to consider asking us for an opinion.
An opinion can help you negotiate a settlement or decide whether to proceed with full legal proceedings. An opinion is not binding on you or others involved. You can still proceed with full legal proceedings in the court or with us if you want to.
Our opinion is an independent assessment of the main issues in a dispute, prepared by one of our senior examiners. We base opinions on papers you and anyone else involved send us. We cannot treat these papers as confidential.
We publish opinion requests and completed opinions so that you can view them. You can make observations on requested opinions.
Request an opinion
Anyone can request an opinion about the infringement or validity of a patent covering the United Kingdom (UK).
An opinion costs GBP £200 and takes no more than 3 months.
What happens next?
If we proceed with your request, we send copies of all the documents we receive to other interested parties and advertise your request on this website.
We will tell you about any observations, so that you can make observations in reply, that is observations about the observations.
You can withdraw a request at any time.
We will send a copy of the final opinion to everyone invovled. If you disagree with our opinion, you can ask us to review it.
