CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PATENT AGENTS

IPReg carries out the regulatory functions of setting and maintaining the standards of qualification for entry on the Register and has a Code of Conduct to ensure that registrants provide an appropriate level of service to their clients. Despite the historic name of the Institute, patent attorneys have always been qualified to advise on trade marks, designs and copyright as well as patents (collectively known as intellectual property). CIPA: advises the UK Government and other international bodies on policy and practice matters; is run by a Council of 26 members elected by the Fellows of the Institute; provides training for its members both pre- and post-qualification; organises patent clinics for members of the public; and provides informative publications for the general public. A patent attorney is a member of a profession of around 1, 500 members who have a particular expertise in the field of intellectual property.

Intellectual property encompasses patents, industrial designs, design rights and related copyright areas, from computer programs to the shape of teapots, and trade marks. Patent attorneys work either in patent departments of large industrial organisations, in private firms of patent attorneys, or in government departments, and their work deals with obtaining and enforcing intellectual property rights. A patent is a right granted by the government to inventors (or more usually nowadays companies) in return for disclosure of an invention.

In return for the public disclosure of a new and unobvious invention, the state gives the patent owner the right to stop other people using that invention for a certain period of time (maximum 20 years). Inventions vary from simple gadgets to complex mechanical, chemical, electronic or microbiological processes and apparatus. In order to secure a patent, a full description of the invention, including definitions of the invention sought to be protected, needs to be filed with the Government Patent Office.