IPONZ has announced new official fees for patents and trade marks in New Zealand. These will come into force on 13 February 2020.

Trade Marks

For trade marks, many fees are dropping.

The Good News

The fee reduction encourages applicants to use the IPONZ preliminary search and advice option and pre-approved specifications for goods and services.

This encourages small businesses to develop registrable trade marks in conjunction with IPONZ guidance, and there should be fewer applications on the register which are flawed at filing and have little prospect of success. The reduction in IPONZ’s workloads should in turn speed examination, meaning more registrations issue without objections.

The Not so Good News

There is a potential down-side to embracing these services.

IPONZ’s preliminary search and advice is not a comprehensive search. It does not guarantee that an approved application will not conflict with third party rights.

IPONZ does not consider rights in trade marks outside their limited search or any unregistered trade mark common law rights. This may give small businesses a false sense of security that trade marks are free to use without proper considering all potential risk areas.

The pre-approved list may also not provide protection necessary for a strong trade mark right or may result in applicants simply selecting all goods in a class without tailoring an application to fit their business plans.

The Potentially Bad News

We anticipate that the relatively cheap application process will result in an influx of applications that overclaim the area of interest or are simply speculative filings. Applicants will lodge to reserve a position on the register with no true interest in use.

Trade mark registers internationally are already seeing a dramatic increase in applications from fast-growing economies like China, and this is likely to increase even further when filing is cheap and easily done.

As the register becomes cluttered, trade mark owners will have to negotiate a larger number of trade marks when developing new brands. This can mean an increase in branding costs as oppositions, non-use and invalidity actions may be needed to clear the register of trade marks that aren’t used or that are filed without proper consideration of common law rights and existing reputations.

Overseas brand owners should also be wary of an influx of opportunistic applications endeavouring to trade off overseas reputation and take advantage of a cheap and easy filing process.

What Should You Do Now?

Filing now may save you costs in the long run.

For overseas companies, assess if New Zealand is a potential future market. Are you in Australia already and thinking about neighbouring markets?

If you are expanding or re-branding your business, think about whether you should file for your new trade mark now while others hold off waiting for cheap fees to come into effect. You may well avoid increased risk of citations by getting in early.

As always, the first step in deciding what do to is taking advice from the right person. Talk to our trade marks team today.

Patents

For patents, many fees are increasing.

2013 Act cases

Any application filed after 13 September 2014 is made under the 2013 Act. Almost all pending applications are 2013 Act cases.

For 2013 Act cases, there are two key changes.

The request for examination fee increases from $500 to $750. To avoid this increase, applicants should request examination before 13 February 2020.

IPONZ is also introducing an excess claims fee. This applies to each 5th claim from claim 30 onwards. It is due after acceptance, but is calculated based on the maximum number of claims at any point between requesting examination and acceptance. The excess claim fee can be avoided by having 29 or fewer claims during examination. Since other countries already charge excess claim fees (notably Australia and the United States), most applicants shouldn’t have too much difficulty avoiding this fee.

1953 Act cases

Divisionals of applications filed before 13 September 2014 are made under the 1953 Act.

The key change for 1953 Act cases is the doubling the filing fee to $500. IPONZ hopes this will dissuade further divisional from being filed.

Patent renewals

Patent renewal fees are increasing hugely. All the fees are at least doubled, and the 15th to 19th year fee is almost tripling to $1000 per year.

Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid this increase: renewal fees cannot be paid more than six months in advance.

The Effect

On their face, these fee changes do not seem good for New Zealand businesses. Who wants to pay more?

But, there may be a silver lining to this. Foreign competitors may avoid filing in New Zealand or may allow their patents to lapse earlier to avoid the increased costs. This is particularly likely with foreign entities who apply for patents in New Zealand purely to disrupt New Zealand-based competitors.

The fee changes could therefore actually benefit businesses in New Zealand in the long run.

What Should You Do Now?

Requesting examination now will help to minimise costs.

But the decision on when to request examination goes beyond simply saving a few dollars now. Talk to our patents team to decide how to best manage your patent portfolio.