On 1 October 2007 the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) changed its practice regarding relative grounds objections: in short, instead of examiners raising relative grounds issues ex officio, they now notify the owners of earlier registrations on the existence of a possibly conflicting application, leaving them to decide whether they are sufficiently affected by the application to oppose it or to seek an amicable resolution of any possible conflicts through discussion and coexistence agreements. In the light of this Allan James, of the UK-IPO, has informed us that

"the rate of opposition in the UK is now less than 6% of published applications, just over twice the pre-relative grounds change rate and only a fifth of the rate of overall objections (including official objections) prior to the change. There has been no increase in invalidity applications. Where a response is received to the opposition (about 60%), the number going into cooling off is twice the number filing an immediate defence. This is a reversal of the position before the relative grounds change, so there seems to be plenty of potential use for a co-existence agreement".