The fees payable in US dollars for the services of various International Searching Authorities will change on January 1, 2017. The following table lists the ISAs that are available to applicants filing in RO/US, ranked in descending order of cost for the first invention.
| before January 1, 2017 US$ | effective January 1, 2017 US$ | second through nth inventions | approximate US$ | |
| ISA/EP | 2097 | 2103 | € 1875 | 1985 |
| ISA/US (large entity) | 2080 | 2080 | US$ 2080 | 2080 |
| ISA/AU | 1674 | 1688 | AU$ 2200 | 1637 |
| ISA/SG | 1578 | 1641 | SG$ 2240 | 1567 |
| ISA/JP | 1530 | 1536 | ¥ 126000 | 1115 |
| ISA/KR | 1120 | 1177 | ₩ 225000 | 191 |
| ISA/US (small entity) | 1040 | 1040 | US$ 1040 | 1040 |
| ISA/IL | 912 | 938 | ₪ 3529 | 911 |
| ISA/US (micro entity) | 520 | 520 | US$ 520 | 520 |
| ISA/RU | 420 | 449 | руб 28000 | 433 |
These fee changes are the routine annual changes to reflect shifts in currency exchange rates. As you may see, the general ranking for the first invention remains unchanged, with EPO being the most expensive ISA and Rospatent being the least expensive.
The fee for the second through nth inventions is payable in the currency of the particular Searching Authority. For convenience, this table also offers the US dollar equivalent amount at today’s approximate exchange rate. From this table one may be be reminded of the strikingly favorable fee charged by the Korean patent office for the second through nth inventions, which at present exchange rates is about $191. This favorable fee continues to be a factor which an applicant would want to take into account when filing a PCT application that is thought to contain multiple inventions.
The fees for ISA/US (as denominated in US dollars) will not change on January 1, 2017, but are included in this table for convenient comparison. This table offers a reminder that ISA/US charges reduced fees for small and micro entities.
An applicant may wish to take into account many other factors besides cost. Other factors might include:
- whether the Searching Authority provides copies of cited references, and if so, whether a fee is charged for the copies
- timeliness
- quality
- extent to which the national or regional designed/elected office gives full faith and credit to the ISA work product of that office
- usability of ISA work product to get on the Patent Prosecution Highway
- availability of various International Preliminary Examining Authorities depending upon the applicant’s selection of ISA