Russia: Radical Changes to IP Rights Maintenance Rules and Sharp Increase of Official Fees

The Russian government’s Ruling No 1278 published on September 27, 2024 set new rules for maintaining in force invention and utility model patents and increased the IP rights-related official fees.

The Ruling becomes effective on October 5, 2024.

The main changes introduced by the Ruling are the following:
1. The amounts of the official fees are increased (several positions remain unchanged, but some are raised significantly). In particular, the annuity/renewal payments will be increased by 10-25%.
2. The 30% discount for electronic filing of the instruction is abolished.
3. Annual instalments paid for maintaining patents’ validity are to be replaced by 5-year payments.

• The change affects all invention and utility model patents irrespective of the application filing date and design patents based on applications filed before January 1, 2015.  For design patents based on applications filed after January 1, 2015, the 5-year payment periods have been set earlier.
• Transition period: if you have to pay the next annuity, you will be required to pay the fee set for the respective 5-year period minus the fees that might already have been paid for the first years of the same period. For example, instead of paying the annuity for the 8^th year, you will pay the total amount set for the second 5-year period minus the sum already paid for the 6^th and 7^th years.