IP NEWS:SOEI Patent & Law Firm

The applicants who abandon or withdraw their application during the period from August 9, 2006 to August 8, 2007 before the examination begins are able to request a full refund of the official fees paid for the request for examination. Until now, only half of the official fees paid for the request for examination was refunded.

The statutory period for filing a Request for Examination was reduced from seven years to three years in 2001, and the numbers of Request for Examination has been increasing rapidly since then. As a result, it currently takes 26 months from the filing date of a Request for Examination to the first action.

Various strategies are being used to reduce the time until the first action. One measure is to provide a full refund of the official fees paid for the Request for Examination. This system will provide an incentive for the applicants to reconsider their Request for Examination after they have filed their request. The system is expected to reduce the number of application that need to be examined.

Requirements

The applicants are required to fulfill the following conditions to benefit from the system:

• A Request for Examination must have been filed for the application.
• No office action has been issued against the application yet.
• The date of abandonment or withdrawal is during the period from August 9, 2006 to August 8, 2007.
• The Request for Refund must be filed within six months from the date of the withdrawal or abandonment.

The full refund of the official fees paid for the Request for Examination is only a temporary measure. The applications that are abandoned or withdrawn after August 9, 2007 will be able to obtain a refund of half of the official fees paid for the Request for Examination, upon request.