A firm of Birmingham intellectual property specialists has warned that government plans for new high-speed patents are “not necessarily a step forward for innovation” in the region.

The Department of Business Innovation and Skills has consulted on plans to bring in a new “superfast” process, allowing people to patent their ideas in as little as 90 days. Applications usually take between two and five years to grant.

Under the UK Intellectual Property Office consultation, a fee estimated to be between £3,500 and £4,000 would be payable on top of any original charges.

However, Chris Bond, senior associate at Forresters, which has offices in Edmund Street, said that although the consultation was welcome, there were other avenues available to speed up the patent process without incurring the fees the government proposes as part of its plans.

“That’s just too much for most people, and therefore not necessarily good for innovation in Birmingham and the West Midlands,” said Mr Bond. “It’s good that they’re looking at speeding up the process, but in reality that would only be helping a handful of applications.

“What some people don’t realise is that they can already speed up the patent process without incurring additional costs,” he added.

“It is already possible to speed up the grant of a UK patent application by requesting accelerated processing. To qualify for this the applicant must supply an adequate reason – for example they need a granted patent to close a business transaction – which usually means that they can get a patent granted in less than a year.”

Forresters handles all aspects of intellectual property, working with companies to protect their innovations.

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