Design Rules Amendment: Design Fee Increased
On January 01, 2015, the Indian Patent Office (IPO) published a notice regarding the amendment in Design Rules which has been effective from December 30, 2014. The said rules are available on the official website of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks.
1. Major Amendments:
(a) The fee structure for filing design application as well as other proceedings under the Designs Act has been revised.
(b) Two main categories of applicants for designs have been introduced as:
- ‘natural person’; and
- ‘other than natural person(s)’.This has been further categorized into-
- ‘small entity’; and
- ‘others except small entity’.
The fees for ‘small entity’ have been fixed in between the fees for a natural person and for all persons other than natural persons (except a small entity). The criteria for ‘small entity’ have been elaborated in the amended rules.
- Revised Form l to 23 have been introduced in The Second Schedule.
- A new Form-24 has been introduced in the rules, which has to accompany every new application.
- In case an application was filed by a natural person, but it was later fully or partly transferred to a person other than a natural person, the difference, if any, in the scale of fees between the fees charged from a natural person and the fees chargeable from the person other than natural person in the same matter shall be paid by the new applicant with the request for transfer.
- In case an application was filed by a small entity, but it was later fully or partly transferred to a person other than a natural person (except a small entity), the difference if any, in the scale of fees between the fees charged from the ‘small entity’ and the fees chargeable from the person other than natural person (except a small entity) in the same matter shall be paid by the new applicant with the request made for such transfer.
2. In case of joint applicants, the highest fee category of the applicant among the joint applicants will be taken into consideration for the purpose of fee calculation.
3. The revised fee structure is as follows:
Source: http://ipindia.nic.in/
Link: Design Amendments Rules.