SIPO Announced Termination and Adjustment of Certain Patent Fees

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The State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (“SIPO”) issued No. 272 Announcement on June 15, 2018.  In order to further reduce the burden on society and promote the protection of patent rights, SIPO will terminate and adjust certain patent fees starting August 1, 2018.  The detail of the announcement is as follows:

1. The patent registration fee, the publication and printing fee, and the fee for recording a change (change of a patent agency and change of representation of a patent agency) for domestic patent filings, and the transmission fee for a PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) patent application (international phase) will be terminated. For the above-mentioned fees that will be due before or on July 31, 2018, the applicant should pay the fees in accordance with the current rules.
2. For a patent which has been approved for the reduced fees on or before July 31, 2018, the detailed implementation is as follows: if a patent is within 6 years from the year of grant, the reduced annuity period will be extended to the 10^th year. If a patent is within 7-9 years from the year of grant, the annuity will be continually reduced from the following year until the 10^th year.  If a patent is in the 10^th year or beyond from the year of grant, the annuity will not be reduced any further.
3. For an invention patent application that enters into the substantive examination stage, if the applicant voluntarily withdraws the application before the deadline to respond to the first office action (except for a response that has been submitted), the applicant may request for a refund of 50% of the substantive examination fee.

Osha Liang will continue to monitor the latest developments from SIPO regarding patent prosecution in China and report it in our future newsletters.  For any questions, please contact Han-Mei Tso at tso@oshaliang.come or your usual Osha Liang contact.