1. Amendment of Patent Office Fees Act
By Federal Gazette BGBl I No. 89/2018, published on 21 December 2018, the Patent Office Fees Act was amended as of 1 January 2019 for reduction of fees.
The most important amendments are:
1.1. In the course of e-filing of
- a patent application (§ 3 (3)),
- a translation of a European patent (§ 8 (3)),
- a request for a search or an expert opinion (§ 14 (5)),
- a utility model application (§ 15 (5))
the respective fee is reduced by € 20,- as is effective so far for Austrian trademark applications.
1.2. In the course of e-filing of a single or multiple design application the respective fee is reduced by € 5,-.
1.3. The national fee in connection with an international trademark application was raised from € 135,- to € 141,- (§ 25 (1)). However, in case of using the Madrid-eFiling-System that fee is reduced to CHF 141,- (§ 25 (2)) which, according to the present exchange rate, equals to a reduction of € 20,- (see point 1.1. above).
1.4. The fee for any request to the Nullity Department of the Patent Office was reduced from € 470,- to € 320,- (§ 28 (1) 2). In connection with the unchanged lump-sum document fee of € 230,- according to Fee´s Act (§ 14, Tariff number 10) the total fee is now only € 550,- instead of so far € 700,-.
1.5. In the course of a request for recordal of a change of name encompassing several IP rights of the same type just one single fee for the request, at the time € 41,-, is to be paid, like it is so far effective for the document fee, at the time € 40,-. Thus the total fee is just € 81,-, independent of the number of IP rights of the same type.
1.6. The Patent Office Fee Regulation, BGBl II No. 469/2005, as of No. 234/2017, which had regulated several petty fees was cancelled without substitution. However, for extracts from the register as well as priority documents document fees according to the Fee´s Act are still to be paid.
