A patent owner recently got more than 3,350 yuan (about US$400) of compensation from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) for their dereliction of duty.

In February 2001, Wang Xiangdong applied for a patent for a new type of mop he invented. Since Wang himself lived elsewhere in China, he wrote down the address of one of his relatives with the surname of Xia who lived in a neighborhood community in Hadian district of Beijing on the application form. In the blank of "receiver of letter" he wrote down his own name, but added "transferred by Xia".

The SIPO granted the patent to Wang in December 2001. It published the announcement for the patent and sent the certificate to Wang. But in the announcement and the certificate, the bureau deleted the words "transferred by Xia" in the address.

Because of the error, Wang did not receive the certificate for long, nor did he hear from anyone who showed interest in his invention. After careful checking, Wang found the certificate had been lost in the mail. He asked the office to make the address change and make the announcement for the correction, but the office only promised to resend the certificate but refused to make the announcement for the correction.

Wang sued the office in July 2003, asking it to make an announcement for the address correction and pay compensation of 4.5 million yuan.

After meticulously checking and rechecking all the facts, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court decided the office, because of dereliction of duty, made mistakes, which caused havoc to the interests to the patent owner. The court ordered the office to make the announcement for the address change within 30 days after the verdict and pay direct economic loss of 3,354.5 yuan to Wang.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2003)