June 2021: Official Fees Change in Russia

On June 17, 2021, the Russian government issued a ruling that introduced changes to the official fees related to patent examination and the issuance of original certificates.

Patent examination

Previously, the following official fees applied to the process of substantive examination:

• If the examination request was filed together with the application, the fee amounted to RUB 12,500 + RUB 9,200 for each independent claim after the first (in this case, the applicant was entitled to receive the search report within 7 months of filing the application);
• In the case that the examination request was submitted after filing the application, the fee was RUB 4,700 + RUB 2,800 per claim for the second through fifth independent claims + RUB 5,400 for each independent claim after the fifth.

After the amendment, the unified rate “RUB 12,500 + RUB 9,200 for each independent claim after the first” will be applied to all cases*.

The ruling introduces a new 50% discount to the examination fee in the case that the applicant provides a preliminary patentability report prepared by an accredited organization in accordance with the 2020 Civil Code amendments.

Issuing original certificates

The patent/trademark/geographical indication/appellation of origin grant procedures previously included the payment of a grant fee of RUB 1,500 for patents and RUB 2,000 for the other IP rights.

With this change, the fee of RUB 2,000 for all the aforementioned IP rights will now only be levied if the applicant expressly requests the paper original of the patent/certificate. (The registration fee has not changed; it is now clearly indicated that it covers the issuance of the patent/certificate in electronic form.)

The same principle applies to all other actions resulting in the issuance of a letters patent or a trademark/geographical indication/appellation of origin certificate: the official fee of RUB 2,000 will be paid if the rights holder chooses to obtain, along with the electronic copy, the original paper document. This relates to:

• extension of the patent term
• recording of changes in ownership
• corrections of clerical mistakes
• conversion of a challenged invention patent to a utility model patent
• etc.

Most of the amendments enter into force on the date of the publication of the ruling (June 21, 2021); the others will come into effect August 1, 2021.

*The official fees mentioned in this text do not take into account the 30% discount effective for actions instructed electronically.

This article was also published in Lexology