Saturday, January 3, 2009

Revised Korean Search Fee for PCT

Happy New Year! Happy 2009 year!

The start of the year sees higher PCT filing fee for Malaysians. The Korea IP Office revised their search fee from KRW225,000 (RM869) to KRW900,000 (RM2803), an increase of 400%.

Natural persons no longer qualify for European Patent Office's 75% search fee reduction. Our neighbour's in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand still qualifies for that discount. However, natural persons of Malaysia still qualifies for 90% reduction in filing fee. Now we are in the same league as Singapore.

Malaysia can nominate Korea, Australia or Europe to perform their PCT search. Each countries set their own fees. As of 1 Jan 2009, the search fees for Korea KRW900,000 (RM2803), Australia AUD1600 (RM3910) and Europe EUR1700 (RM8062). The Korea search fee is still the least fee among the search authorities.

Other than the search fee, Malaysia applicants have to incur transmittal fees and filing fees. The transmittal fees are RM375 and the filing fees are EUR1330 (RM4170).

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