22.12.2009 — Amended renewal fees for patents and utility models in Austria from 1 January 2010

The new year brings changes in the fee structure of the Austrian Patent Office.

From 1 January 2010 patents are exempt from the duty to pay renewal fees in the first five years. Utility models are free of charge in the first three years. The new fee scheme applies to property rights (including European patents that are validated in Austria) with a due date on or after 1 January 2010. Hence, the applicable fee depends on the due date, not on the date the payment is effected!

The entire fee structure was amended and simplified: Instead of the stepwise increase of the renewal fees in the past they now rise linearly with increasing duration of protection.

Another change concerns the number of patent claims: From the 11th claim on, a claim fee of EUR 100 is charged for each ten additional claims in addition to search and examination fee.

For applications dealing with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions a deferral of the fees until the due date of the 6th renewal fee was introduced.

The amended fee structure is part of the so called "Innovationsschutznovelle" which was introduced by Austria's government and parliament recently. It comprises other changes in the field of intellectual property rights which will come into force later. Further information will be available here.

Please contact us if you need additional information.

18.12.2009 — WARNING - Fraudulent requests for payment of fees

Increasingly, applicants for and owners of intellectual property rights receive requests to pay fees for fraudulent services.

Said requests masquerade as official communications and may be difficult to be identified as forgery.

In some cases the payment of renewal fees for trademarks is demanded. Other examples request payment for the entry of intellectual property rights in registers of dubious nature. Those registration services are useless for applicants for and owners of intellectual property rights; in many cases the respective registers do not even exist.

When your intellectual property rights are administrated by a professional representative, official payments requests are sent directly to the representative, that is: us. Hence, if you reveice invoices related to your intellectual property rights from other sources than us, do not pay them.

Instead, you may send said invoices to us so we can inform the competent authorities about such fraudulent companies.

Examples of such "companies" that have been indicated to us are:

C.R.P.S.L. International Publication (Alicante, Spain), IBIP-International Bureau for Intellectual Property LLC (Summerville, USA) or ODM-Patent Trademark Register.

Please note that such companies change their names and locations frequently. Up-to-date information can be found here:

www.wipo.int/pct/en/warning/pct_warning.htm

Please contact us if you need additional information to this topic.

01.11.2009 — New Website online from 1 November 2009

With the beginning of November 2009 the new Website of Patentanwaltskanzlei Matschnig & Forsthuber is online.