Cheap­er online option for patent applications

IP Aus­trali­a’s Patent Office has intro­duced an online facil­i­ty that now gives patent appli­cants and own­ers an easy and secure sys­tem for the elec­tron­ic fil­ing of patent appli­ca­tions and the ongo­ing man­age­ment of those appli­ca­tions and any grant­ed patents.

Appli­cants (or their patent attor­neys) can now apply online for:

1. a pro­vi­sion­al appli­ca­tion for a patent;
2. a stan­dard patent appli­ca­tion; and
3. an inno­va­tion patent application.

Elec­tron­ic fil­ing is cheap­er than lodg­ing a paper appli­ca­tion. One impor­tant dif­fer­ence to note, how­ev­er, is that it is nec­es­sary to make a dec­la­ra­tion about enti­tle­ment at the time of fil­ing. This means that it is nec­es­sary for an appli­cant to pro­vide writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion pri­or to fil­ing elec­tron­i­cal­ly that the appli­cant has enti­tle­ment from the inven­tor and, if the appli­cant is not the appli­cant of the pri­or­i­ty appli­ca­tion, that enti­tle­ment has been obtained from the appli­cant of the pri­or­i­ty appli­ca­tion. With­out this infor­ma­tion, it will be nec­es­sary to file a paper appli­ca­tion, at the high­er cost.

If you would like fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Swaab Attorneys.

Co-authored by M Hall.