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Securing Your InvestmentsPatent Maintenance FeesIntroduction For information related to fees in respect of the filing, examination and grant of patents, please refer to A Guide to Patents. Maintenance Fees What is the process? You pay maintenance fees to prevent your patent rights from expiring before the maximum twenty years. The date upon which your maintenance fee becomes due depends on the filing date of your patent. The first payment is due no later than the second anniversary of the filing of your application, and for each subsequent anniversary of the date of filing up to the nineteenth year. For example, if you filed your application on January 1, 2006, your first maintenance fee will be due by January 1, 2008. You also have the flexibility of paying for a number of years in advance. Does this apply to all patents? For applications filed after October 1, 1989, and for patents issued on these applications, maintenance fees are payable starting on or before the second anniversary of the application filing date. For applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), the PCT international filing date is the filing date in Canada. When entering the national phase in Canada, you are required to pay any maintenance fee that would have been payable had the international application been filed in Canada as a Canadian application on the international filing date. For reissued patents, the maintenance fees continue to be paid according to the schedule for the original patent. As for divisional applications, they bear the filing date of the parent application. Therefore a divisional application is, at the time of filing, subject to fees calculated from the filing date of the parent application, which are payable upon the filing of the divisional application. Who can pay the maintenance fees? Following the grant of a patent, the fee to maintain a patent can be paid by the patentee, or by any person acting for the patentee, whether residing in Canada or not. All correspondence concerning the payment of a maintenance fee for a patent application or a patent will be sent to the person paying the maintenance fee or, if applicable, to the authorized correspondent. To make sure that any correspondence issued by CIPO reaches the intended party, please ensure that CIPO has your correct address. It is your responsibility to inform CIPO of any change of address. How much do I pay? The amount you pay increases every five years of the patent's life. You can find out the fee due each year by consulting Schedule II, Tariff of Fees of the Patent Rules. How do I pay? You may also want to submit a maintenance fee calculation sheet whenever you are paying maintenance fees. The form is also available at CIPO's Client Service Centre. Please refer to our correspondence procedures before submitting your payment. Do I get a receipt? How can I make sure I do not forget to pay the maintenance fee each year? What happens if I do not pay within the prescribed period? For a patent, office practice is to send a notice indicating that your patent is now considered in an "about-to-lapse" state, meaning that the patent will lapse unless the maintenance fee, together with an additional fee of $200 for late payment, is submitted within the one year period of grace. If the patent lapses, there will be no possibility of revival. The notices are sent as a courtesy only. Consequences for non-payment arise even if a notice is not sent. Note: Time limits for the payment of maintenance fees cannot be extended. Where can I obtain more information? This page provides general information only and does not provide legal advice. |
Last Modified: 2006-11-05 | Important Notices |