Effective on January 1, 2010, Taiwan IP Office (TIPO) will adopt a claim-number-based fee schedule for substantial examination fee of Invention patent application. For an invention patent application with claim number more than 10, each additional claim (independent or dependent claim) will have a surcharge of NT 800.? For an invention patent application with claim number less than or equal to 10, the substantial examination fee is NT 7,000 (NT 1,000 less than the original substantial examination fee). For patent application filed before January 1, 2010, the fee schedule still adopts the old regulation.
Note:
1. This new regulation is also applied to Division application, Conversion application from Utility Model application, filed after January 1, 2010.
2. Before the first Office action, the charge for substantial examination can be refund if surcharge had been paid and the claim is amended to have fewer numbers; an additional surcharge might be paid if the claim is amended to have numbers more than 10 and exceeding the original claim number.
Example 1: The original claim number is 12, and the new claim number is 3, a surcharge for 2 claims will be refunded because the applicant had paid surcharge for 2 claims before.
Example 2: The original claim number is 9, and the new claim number is 3, no surcharge will be refunded because there is no surcharge for the original claim.
Example 3: The original claim number is 8, and the claim amendment deletes 2 claims and adds 5 new claims. The new claim has 11 total claims and surcharge for 1 additional claim should be paid.
3. After the first Office action, surcharge will be paid if the claim is amended such that the number of new claims plus the original claim is more than 10.
Example 1: The original claim number is 8, and in the amendment, 2 claims are deleted and 4 claims are added. Because the examiner has examined 8 original claims, surcharge for 2 claims (8+4-10=2) should be paid.
Moreover, Taiwan IPO has announced new regulation for accelerated examination and maintenance fee recently, and we will report this soon. |
