IPReg’s consultation on First Tier Complaints

On 26 June 2025, CIPA submitted its response to IPReg’s consultation on First Tier Complaints (‘FTCs’) and proposed changes to the IPReg Core Regulatory Framework to comply with new requirements set by the Legal Services Board (‘LSB’). CIPA’s response, was prepared by the Regulatory Affairs Committee with particular thanks to Chris Mercer and Estelle Senior.

As a preliminary remark, we are always keen to ensure that any changes to the regulatory environment for registered patent attorneys are proportionate, as required by the Legal Services Act. We know that from the statistics on complaints about registered patent attorneys that there are very few in number and so there is no need to impose any further regulation on them. We therefore consider that the regulations for other legal professions where there are many more complaints should not be applied without thinking to the patent attorney profession.

In the following, we refer to the entities who could become a relevant complainant, as defined in Office for Legal Complaints Scheme Rules as ‘relevant entities’ because, as shown below, most of them are not complainants.

See the full response in the July-August issue of the CIPA Journal

Date published: 20 August 2025