IP Australia News – Fee Review and New Web Site

IP Australia, which encompasses the Australian Patent, Trade Marks and Designs offices, is commencing one of its periodic reviews of the fees charged for its services, such as filing and registration of applications.

According to an email notification issued by IP Australia:

The purpose of IP Australia’s 2011 Fee Review is to assess the existing IP Australia cost recovery arrangements in accordance with the Australian Government Cost Recovery Guidelines 2005 and ensure that fees and charges are transparent and consistent with the Australian Government cost recovery policy.

The objectives of the 2011 Fee Review is [sic] to:

1. Maintain the on-going viability of IP Australia while keeping the cost of services low
2. Maximise innovation in Australia through a fee structure that promotes the economic value of IP Rights
3. Simplify and streamline the fee structure by:

             o keeping fee structures as simple as possible with minimal changes 
                over time

             o reducing the administrative burden on customers while achieving
                improvements in operational efficiency within IP Australia, and

             o increasing parity and uniformity in fees across product lines

1. Ensure fees remain internationally competitive

Once the review is complete, details of any proposed changes will be published for comment on the IP Australia web site.

It is anticipated that any changes in fees will take effect from 1 July 2012.

IP Australia is inviting feedback and/or comments, which may be sent via email to FeeReview@ipaustralia.gov.au.

IP AUSTRALIA WEB SITE REVAMPED

Interested readers who have not yet seen the new IP Australia web site which has recently been launched should visit http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/.  The revamped web site is, in our opinion, a great improvement in terms of both appearance and organisation.  We particularly like the new ‘IP Professionals Portal’, which brings together links to many of our most-used areas of the site.

The one downside to the revamp is that many links pointing to information on the old site are now broken.  This will, unfortunately, impact on a number of earlier Patentology articles.  Obviously some of these are no longer timely, and will not be worth fixing.  Please let us know if you encounter any broken links on the blog that you believe remain relevant and should be updated.

Tags: Australia, News, Official fees, Patent Office