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Reducing the JPO’s Official Fee for Request for Examination (July 29, 2011)

On July 8, 2011, Japan’s Cabinet approved a cabinet order to partially revise a fee order concerning the Patent Law. Due to this revision, the official fee for filing a request for examination of a patent application will be lowered by about 25% for requests for examination filed after the effective date of the cabinet order (August 1, 2011).

It should be noted that the fee schedule before the revision (hereinafter “previous fee schedule”) applies to (1) the official fees for filing a request for examination when the fees are to be paid before the effective date of the cabinet order; and (2) to the following types of official fees for filing a request for examination even if the fees are to be paid after the effective date of the cabinet order:

1.	if the request was filed before the effective date of the cabinet order but the effective date is one day before the deadline for paying the official fee, if that deadline resulted from a payment time limit set by the JPO on the ground that the official fee payable was not paid appropriately (Patent Law Article 17(3)(iii));
2.	if the request was filed before the effective date of the cabinet order and the applicant indicated its intention to defer payment of the official fee for filing a request for examination, and due to such postponement of payment, the payment of the official fee is to be made after the effective date of the cabinet order.

JOP’s Announcement

New and Previous Fee Schedules of the Official Fees for Filing an Examination Request That Is Subject to the Revision

	New Fees	Previous Fees
Ordinary patent application	JPY118,000 plus JPY4,000 multiplied by the number of claims	JPY168,600 plus JPY4,000 multiplied by the number of claims
International patent application for which the JPO has prpared an international search report	JPY71,000 plus JPY2,400 multiplied by the number of claims	JPY101,200 plus JPY2,400 multiplied by the number of claims
International patent application for which an office other than the JPO has prepared an international search report	JPY106,000 plus JPY3,600 multiplied by the number of claims	JPY151,700 plus JPY3,600 multiplied by the number of claims
Patent application that is accompanied by a search report issued by a specified registered search agency	JPY94,000 plus JPY3,200 multiplied by the number of claims	JPY134,900 plus JPY3,200 multiplied by the number of claims

Regarding the Application of the New Fee Schedule

• The revised fee schedule applies to the requests for examination filed after the effective date of the cabinet order to revise the fee order (August 1, 2011).
• The previous fee schedule (before the revision of the fee order) applies to the official fees for filing a request for examination that are to be paid before the effective date of the cabinet order to revise the fee order.
- The previous fee schedule applies to the official fee for filing a request for examination even if the payment of the fees are to be made after the effective date of the cabinet order, under the following conditions:

1. the request was filed before the effective date of the cabinet order and the effective date is one day before the deadline for paying the official fee, if that deadline resulted from a payment time limit that was set by the JPO on the ground that the official fee payable was not paid appropriately (Patent Law Article 17(3)(iii));

2. the request was filed before the effective date of the cabinet order and the applicant indicated its intention to defer payment of the official fee for filing a request for examination, and due to such postponement of payment, and, due to such postponement of payment, the payment of the official fee is to be made after the effective date of the cabinet order.

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