Annual IP fee schedule revision by Turkey and Colombia
In keeping up with the tradition of revising their IP fee schedules in January each year, Turkish Patent and Trademark Office (Turkpatent) and Colombian Superintendence of Industry and Commerce implemented new fees on January 1, 2020.
In Colombia, this year’s revision resulted in most of the patent fees being increased by an average of 4% with examination fee rising from 1.256.500 COP (Colombian Peso) to 1.296.500 COP. Basic filing fee for ten claims has increased by 9% from 76.000 COP to 83.500 COP, while each additional claim now costs 1.500 COP more. Rates of annual maintenance fees have experienced the same change of 4%.
Industrial design fees have grown by about 3% making the filing fee 667.500 COP instead of 646.500 COP. The fee affected most by the amendments is the one for introducing changes to the drawings in pending design applications, the rate has increased from 155.000 COP to 167.000 COP.
The fee schedule for trademarks has been updated the same way with just a slight increase of 3% on average. The filing of a trademark application in one class will cost 954.500 COP as compared to the previous fee of 925.000 COP; each additional class increases the price by 477.000 COP, which is 15.000 COP more than the previous rate. The price for renewal in one class has grown from 503.500 COP to 520.000 COP.
The same as a great many other countries, Colombia follows the digitalisation trend by encouraging applicants to file via its online system called “Virtual Industrial Property Office”, therefore all the fees provided earlier are for online procedures. Though still in place, paper fees are not competitive at all, e.g. the price for paper filing of a patent application is approximately 20% higher.
Changes introduced to the IP fee schedule in Turkey are more substantial and relate to all fees for patents, trademarks, industrial designs and utility models. All fees charged in respect of these IP types have increased by 18% on average. The filing fee for a patent application has grown from 40 TL (Turkish Lira) to 50 TL showing a 20% raise, the same applies to the fee for claiming priority, which has grown by 20 TL, and the fee for grant has increased from 295 TL to 360 TL.
The only rate subject to a much higher increase is for claiming trademark priority that has grown by 30% from 185 TL to 270 TL. Last year, the highest discrepancy between the previous and new fees constituted 30 TL, this year the difference is 85 TL.
Every year IP offices choose January 1 as the date for implementation of new fees or even legislation. The year 2020 is not an exception with Colombia again increasing the fee rates by 5% on average, Turkey revising the whole fee schedule and Belarus increasing the base value, on which the amounts of IP fees depend, by 1.5 BYN (Belarusian Ruble).