Code of Conduct and Discipline

All members of the Institute have agreed to abide by the Institute's Rules of Professional Conduct. These were written to ensure that clients consulting a firm of patent attorneys would receive accurate and impartial advice which puts their interests foremost.

On 1 January 2010, the Legal Services Act 2007 came into force. This Act changes the way patent attorneys are regulated. As required by the Act, the Institute has set up an independent Board (the Intellectual Property Regulation Board - IPReg), which sets standards for patent attorneys and polices them. Registered UK patent attorneys, and their employees, are now subject to this Board. For details of the Code of Conduct now applicable to registered patent attorneys and their employees, contact IPReg.

For the rare occasion that an error may occur, and a client may feel that he/she has received poor service from a patent attorney, firms are required to have in place an internal complaints procedure to resolve the issue with the client. If this fails, the Institute may be able to assist by conciliating between the client and the patent attorney.  If a complaint cannot be settled in this way, an aggrieved client may wish to take matters further. Details of how to do this may be found on the IPReg website.