Costs in the UKIPO

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) applies its own costs regime when handling trade mark, design and patent proceedings. Costs are generally awarded on a contributory basis, meaning only a modest contribution towards the successful party’s actual costs is recoverable. Tribunal Practice Notice (TPN) 1/2023 is the current basis for the "contributory" costs scale in UKIPO proceedings and is set out below.

Task

Cost
Preparing a statement and considering the other side’s statement From £200 to £750 depending on the nature of the statements, for example their complexity and relevance.
Preparing evidence and considering and commenting on the other side's evidence From £600 if the evidence is light to £2600 if the evidence is substantial. The award could go above this range in exceptionally large cases but will be cut down if the successful party had filed a significant amount of unnecessary evidence.
Preparing for and attending a hearing Up to £1900 per day of hearing, capped at £3900 for the full hearing unless one side has behaved unreasonably.  From £350 to £650 for preparation of submissions, depending on their substance, if there is no oral hearing.
Expenses (a) Official fees arising from the action and paid by the successful party (other than fees for extensions of time).

(b) The reasonable travel and accommodation expenses for any witnesses of the successful party required to attend a hearing for cross examination.

Awards are intended to be proportionate and reflect the nature and complexity of the proceedings. Higher awards may be made in cases involving unreasonable behaviour. These awards are not usually compensatory either, and will ordinarily represent a proportion of the costs actually incurred. We have been successful in securing ‘off-the-scale’ costs awards in the past, though the proportion awarded is at the discretion of the examiner, so can be as low as 10 or 25%.