IPO officially launches digital renewals service

Following a successful trial, a new digital renewals service has been opened up to all by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The IPO claims the service slashes bulk renewal time from 5 days to 5 minutes. For the first time, users can renew registered designs online. A combination of up to 1,500 IP rights, including patents, trade marks and designs, can be renewed in a single transaction. The service handled around £138m worth of transactions during the 9-month trial period, which saw 550,000 individual IP rights renewed through the platform.