Recommendation 36

The SPSA should amend its procedures to include a review panel to consider any disagreement between examiners: (i) Where there is a disagreement between examiners the further investigation should be conducted by a panel the members of which should have had no prior involvement with the mark in question but need not come from outside SPSA. (ii) The members of the panel should each examine the mark independently without any background information about the case or knowledge of the conclusions of the other panel members. (iii) Once the panel members have reached their own conclusions, they should, as a panel, look at the reasoning of the earlier examiners. (iv) A result of the review should be that examiners understand why they came to different views. (v) If the panel members are unanimous, then the result can be reported.