Revision of Official Fees in JPO (from April 1, 2004)

The Japanese Patent Law shall be revised as from April 1, 2004 with respect to official fees for the purpose of correcting imbalance cost sharing between applicants and prompting appropriate actions in requesting examination.

◆The gist of the revision is:
(1) Shift to a fee system encouraging strategic acquisition of patents, and
(2) Introduction of the refund system for the fee for request for examination.

Review of the reduction or deferment of payment fee will also be implemented.

◆To summarize (1) above, the fee for request for examination would be raised by 100 % with basic fee of 168,600 JPY (1441.0 USD) and 4,000 JPY (34.2 USD) per claim. On the other hand, maintenance fee up to 9th year after filing the application would be reduced by ca. 40 - 80 % depending on the year after filing the application, e. g. 1st to 3rd year maintenance fee to be paid at registration of a patent will be reduced by 80% reduction to 2,600 JPY (22.2 USD; basic fee) and 200 JPY (1.7 USD) per claim. As a result, according to the estimate by the JPO, the total official fee from filing an application to the expiration of the patent should be lowered by 20 % on average, i.e. current 476,700 JPY (4074.4 USD) to 381,600 JPY (3261.5 USD).

It should be noteworthy that a patent application which has been filed before the above implementation date of April 1, 2003 and for which examination has been requested on or after the implementation date should enjoy both the less costly current examination fee and the revised maintenance fee.

◆In relation to (2) above, in sum, half of the fee paid for request for examination would be refunded to the applicant if the applicant withdraws the application during the examination waiting period.

◆For more details, please visit JPO home page at :
http://www.jpo.go.jp/torikumi_e/hiroba_e/hourei_e/amendment.htm