Australian Patent Fees to Rise from 1 August 2010

The Australian Patents Regulations 1991 ("Regulations") have been amended to, among other things, increase a number of official fees, and to introduce two new fees, as anticipated in our posting of 22 June 2010.

FEE CHANGES

The new fees will come into effect from 1 August 2010.  Aside from some incremental increases in selected fees, the main changes are:

1. an increase in the fee associated with a request for an extension of term of a pharmaceutical patent, from A$1300.00 to A$2000.00;
2. an increase in international search fees, from A$1600.00 to A$1900.00;
3. an increase in the fee for filing a provisional patent application on paper, and a new fee of A$80.00 (equivalent to the old paper filing fee) applied to electronic filings; and
4. a new fee applicable to post-acceptance amendments that increase the number of claims, over the basic allowance of 20 claims, of A$100.00 per claim.

We are happy to admit an error in our earlier report - there is no increase in the fee (A$1400.00) associated with requesting an International-Type Search.

Notably, the post-acceptance excess claims fees will be payable upon allowance of the request to amend, rather than at the time of filing the request.  Proposed amendments must be advertised for possible third-party opposition, and allowance of a request typically occurs a few months after filing.  Currently-pending requests may therefore be subject to the new fees, if they are granted after 1 August 2010.

OTHER AMENDMENTS

Further amendments to the Regulations have been made to:

1. incorporate recent changes to the PCT Rules; and
2. to enable search results provided under subsection 45(3) of the Patents Act 1990 that are associated with a PCT application to be made open to public inspection (OPI) when the PCT application is made OPI.

These further amendments came into effect on 1 July 2010.

FURTHER INFORMATION

The IP Australia Official Notice of the amendments can be found here.

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Before You Go…

Thank you for reading this article to the end – I hope you enjoyed it, and found it useful.  Almost every article I post here takes a few hours of my time to research and write, and I have never felt the need to ask for anything in return.

But now – for the first, and perhaps only, time – I am asking for a favour.  If you are a patent attorney, examiner, or other professional who is experienced in reading and interpreting patent claims, I could really use your help with my PhD research.  My project involves applying artificial intelligence to analyse patent claim scope systematically, with the goal of better understanding how different legal and regulatory choices influence the boundaries of patent protection.  But I need data to train my models, and that is where you can potentially assist me.  If every qualified person who reads this request could spare just a couple of hours over the next few weeks, I could gather all the data I need.

The task itself is straightforward and web-based – I am asking participants to compare pairs of patent claims and evaluate their relative scope, using an online application that I have designed and implemented over the past few months.  No special knowledge is required beyond the ability to read and understand patent claims in technical fields with which you are familiar.  You might even find it to be fun!

There is more information on the project website, at claimscopeproject.net.  In particular, you can read:

1. a detailed description of the study, its goals and benefits; and
2. instructions for the use of the online claim comparison application.

Thank you for considering this request!

Mark Summerfield

Tags: Australia, Official fees