Home > Publications > Selected cases — Parliamentary > Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations - October 1998 - March 1999 > Department of Trade and Industry
Sixth Report Session 1998-99
Volume 2
OCTOBER 1998 - MARCH 1999
The full report of selected cases
Summary of other investigations completed
DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY
Complaint about a frustrated international patent application made to the Patent Office
Mr A complained that he had been unable to complete an international patent application because the Patent Office had not told him in good time that from May 1993 they had ceased to be an international preliminary examination authority (IPEA). From early 1993 the Patent Office had regularly advertised their forthcoming loss of function as an IPEA and they took other measures to warn potential applicants. Mr A applied to the Patent Office in April 1993 for national patents, and then applied through them, in April 1994, for an international patent. The first stage of that application process was successfully completed in August 1994. In order to make further progress Mr A needed to apply for an examination of his application to the relevant IPEA—in his case, the European Patent Office—by 26 November 1994. The Patent Office told him on 21 November 1994, after he telephoned them, that they were no longer an IPEA. By then it was effectively too late for him to complete matters and his international patent application foundered. The absence of certain documentary records left the Ombudsman unable to resolve some differences in the respective accounts given by Mr A and the Patent Office. However, Mr A had left it until very late before making enquiries of the Patent Office and his complaint was not upheld.
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Wrongful disclosure of information
In November 1995 an official of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) made a note of a telephone conversation he had had with Mrs X, who worked for an airline, about threats she was perceived to have made in connection with goods held up by Customs pending clarification of their end use. DTI sent a copy of the note to Customs who, after calling for an internal report, decided to take no further action. In June 1996 a Customs official told Mrs X's manager what he (the official) understood Mrs X to have said to the DTI official during the telephone conversation. Another Customs official subsequently sent the airline copies of DTI's note and of Customs' own report on the matter. The airline began an investigation as to whether Mrs X had committed a disciplinary offence, in the course of which they interviewed DTI and Customs officials. The airline ultimately admonished Mrs X who later took early retirement. The Ombudsman found no fault on the part of DTI, but criticised Customs for the manner and timing of their disclosures to the airline. Customs agreed to apologise to Mrs X and to offer compensation of £1,000 in recognition of distress caused by their error.
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Referral of information to a professional body by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
In August 1994 DTI began an investigation into a company under section 447 of the Companies Act 1985. Some two years earlier the company had granted a debenture to one of its directors which entitled him to appoint an administrative receiver should the company default in repaying a loan he had made to them. On 19 August 1994 Mr S, a registered insolvency practitioner, signed a letter agreeing to act as receiver of the company. Subsequently on 16 September Mr S was appointed liquidator of the company. On 27 January 1995 DTI wrote to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) drawing their attention to Mr S's conduct in accepting the offices of both receiver and voluntary liquidator of the company. Mr S maintained that he had never been the receiver of the company and that DTI should have interviewed him to establish the facts before making a report to ICAEW. The Ombudsman found that DTI had been investigating the company's affairs, not Mr S's professional conduct, and that they had emphasised to ICAEW that the information they were providing was meant to do no more than give ICAEW a basis upon which to decide whether further action was required. The Ombudsman did not uphold Mr S's complaint.
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