Many ISA fees changing in a few weeks

For US filers, many International Searching Authority fees will change in the next few weeks. 

It is recalled that for US filers, usually there are eight ISAs to choose from.  (Sometimes there may be more choices, for example if there is more than one applicant and if the RO is RO/IB.)  There are many factors to consider in the choice of an ISA, and price is not at all the only factor to consider.  But this blog article reviews the prices of these eight ISAs since this may influence a particular filer’s choice of ISA.

  • The USD fee for ISA/US (for a filer that is a large entity) remains unchanged at $2080.
  • The USD fee for ISA/EP remains unchanged at $2053.
  • The USD fee for ISA/SG remains unchanged at $1633.
  • The USD fee for ISA/AU will decrease on November 1 from $1589 to $1492.
  • The USD fee for ISA/JP (for services provided in English) will increase on November 1 from $1369 to $1472.
  • The USD fee for ISA/US (for a filer that is a small entity) remains unchanged at $1040.
  • The USD fee for ISA/KR (for services provided in English) will decrease on October 10 from $1101 to $991.
  • The USD fee for ISA/IL remains unchanged at $963.
  • The USD fee for ISA/RU remains unchanged at $612.
  • The USD fee for ISA/US (for a filer that is a micro entity) remains unchanged at $520.

A chief observation that we can make is that the ranking in order according to price will be unchanged even after these changes in October and November of 2019. 

  • For a large-entity filer, ISA/US continues to be the most expensive ISA.
  • For a small- or micro-entity filer, ISA/EP continues to be the most expensive ISA.
  • For a micro-entity filer, ISA/US continues to be the least expensive ISA.
  • For a large- or small-entity filer, ISA/RU continues to be the least expensive ISA.

By far nearly all US PCT filers choose ISA/EP, ISA/KR, or ISA/US.  Said differently, it very rarely happens that a US PCT filer chooses AU, IL, JP, RU or SG.

Some applicants absolutely do not care about International Search Reports or Written Opinions or anything else about the PCT process other than the 30-month deferral of expensive and difficult foreign filing decisions.  For such an applicant, clearly the correct choice of ISA would be US for a micro entity or RU otherwise.

Some US PCT filers who select EP do so because EPO “drinks its own champagne“.  Nearly all biotech and pharma filers tell me that they routinely select ISA/EP.

One factor favoring KR is that if you were to receive an Invitation to Pay Additional Fees, the fees for the second through nth inventions are a mere ₩ 225,000.  That’s a mere $190.06 per invention at the current exchange rate through TransferWise.  Most often the clients of our firm (which are mostly electronics and software and business method companies) select ISA/KR.

5 Replies to “Many ISA fees changing in a few weeks”

  1. The choice of Russia as the Search Authority carries with it the danger of citations in Russian, and the consequent expense of translation when the time comes to file an information disclosure statement in the US.

      1. It is, yes – we always go with KIPO as ISA, outside extraordinary circumstances, and we not-infrequently get Japanese and Korean (patent) references. Espacenet lets you get machine translations for most references (as does KIPO, though I seem to remember KIPO being more of a headache to navigate), and can usually at least provide a translated abstract for the rest.

  2. Hello, Seth!
    Not in my (admittedly limited) experience. I have had only English language citations from the Korean search authority.. Perhaps others will be able to contribute.
    Regards, Tim.

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