Patents

8. Maintenance Fees

In addition to the costs of preparing and filing patent applications and of prosecuting same, most countries, including the United States, require the periodic payment of fees to the respective Patent Offices to maintain issued patents in force. Some countries, including Canada, require the payment of such "maintenance fees" to keep pending applications in force irrespective of whether the application has been examined or the patent issued. For example, Canada requires the payment of the first annuity before the second anniversary of the Canadian filing date and before each subsequent filing anniversary thereafter, up to and including the nineteenth annuity. Other countries, such as the U.S.A. require payment of maintenance fees on dates measured from the issuance date of the patent.

While many countries provide a grace period for late payments of the maintenance fees (typically, with a significant penalty), failure to pay any single annuity will, if not remedied within the grace period, result in abandonment of the application or issued patent. The theory behind this approach is to facilitate technology becoming available for use by any interested party sooner, if the patent owner is no longer interested enough in the technology to keep his patent in force. Generally, the maintenance fees are lower in amount in the earlier years of protection, and gradually increase throughout the life of the patent (or application). The theory here is that a patent owner has (hopefully) started to earn a profit from his patent rights after the first few years, so that he can then afford the higher maintenance fees. Your agent can discuss the amounts and further particulars with you during your initial or subsequent interviews.

The tracking of annuity dates for various patents around the world can become a rather onerous task, particularly where several patents for different inventions are involved. To this end, most patent agents maintain computerized record keeping systems to ensure that valuable protection is not inadvertently lost through missed maintenance fee payments. A service charge is levied by most agents (beyond the actual government fees involved) for setting up and maintaining these computer databases, reminding the owner periodically of the need to pay maintenance fees, and paying the fee for the owner. This is an important ongoing benefit of employing the services of a registered patent agent in Canada.