IP Australia is changing some of our fees to ensure we continue to recover our costs from administering intellectual property (IP) rights and their associated legislation. The changes to our fees will commence from 12am AEDT, 1 October 2020*.
We encourage you to familiarise yourself with the new fee arrangements for IP Australia’s products and services. A list of the fee changes can be viewed here.
The fee review explored several themes including:
It also gave us a chance to consider the Government’s response to the recommendations from the Productivity Commission’s 2016 Inquiry into Australia’s intellectual property arrangements and take into account feedback received from customers and staff.
In 2019, we invited public comment on our fees and fee structure. Over 80 submissions were received. We reviewed submissions both for possible immediate changes for our fees, but also with regard to developing our longer-term strategy on policy objectives for future fee reviews.
Of these submissions, 28 were identified as potential candidates to be implemented in this fee review. A further 26 submissions were identified as candidates for possible implementation in the future. You can read the public submissions here.
The themes around the submissions we received included:
In December 2019, we published IP Australia’s draft Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (CRIS) outlining the proposed fee changes and feedback was sought over a 9-week consultation period, ending 16 February 2020. Ten submissions were received during this consultation period.
Most of the submissions expressed concern about proposed changes to costs awards for oppositions and hearings. In light of that feedback, IP Australia decided that the proposed changes to cost awards required further consultation and consideration and will not proceed with changes at this time.
IP Australia will publish the final CRIS as part of the 2020-21 budget update.
Regulations have now been made to amend IP Australia’s fees, and the fee changes will commence on 1 October 2020.
*Please note: Changes to Madrid Import Application fees are scheduled to commence from 12am AEDT, 7 November 2020
We last reviewed our fees in the 2015-16 financial year. IP Australia’s 2019-2020 fee review reflects our commitment to ensuring our cost recovery arrangements continue to be in line with the Australian Government Charging Framework and that our fees are consistent, transparent and recover the costs associated with administering the IP rights system.
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