On 7 January 2016, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) launched an open consultation on its proposed reduced fee structure for UK registered designs.
The current fees were last amended in 2006, when the registered design system was very much paper-based. The UKIPO has since moved on and in September 2015 it launched its online service for the filing of new design applications. This more streamlined approach has resulted in a cost saving which the UKIPO is keen to pass on to the end user by reducing its fees for UK registered designs. It is also hoped that the proposed fees will encourage more people to apply for registered design protection in the UK, rather than simply relying on unregistered rights or applying for EU-wide protection when such broad geographic scope is not needed.
The proposed savings under the new structure are shown below:
| Proposed UKIPO fee | Current UKIPO fee | |
| Single online application | £50 | £60 (if publication is not deferred) or £40 (if publication is deferred, with an additional £40 publication fee) |
| Multiple online designs | £70 for up to ten designs and £20 for every ten thereafter (i.e. 11-20) | £40 for each additional design (if publication is not deferred) or £20 for each additional design (if publication is deferred, with an additional £40 publication fee per design) |
| First renewal (5th year) | £70 | £130 |
| Second renewal (10th year) | £90 | £210 |
| Third renewal (15th year) | £110 | £310 |
| Fourth renewal (20th year) | £140 | £450 |
| Application for a Declaration of Invalidity | £48 | £50 |
As you can see, there would be significant savings for renewals. A design that is renewed for the entirety of its 25 year life span would cost £410 to renew as opposed to £1100 under the current fees. The other main area of saving is the initial online filing fee which encourages multiple designs to be filed simultaneously by having a single fee of £70 for up to ten designs, with each additional ten being an extra £20. The current regime has a filing fee of £60 for a single design and £40 for additional each design which is much more expensive once multiple designs are filed.
Several fees will remain the same or increase as shown below. This reflects the inefficiencies of paper-based applications versus their online equivalent:
| Proposed UKIPO fee | Current UKIPO fee | |
| Single paper-based application | £60 | £60 |
| Multiple paper-based designs | £60 for the first design plus £40 for each design thereafter | £60 for the first design plus £40 for each design thereafter |
| Deferred publication | £40 per design | £40 per design |
| Provision of “certified office copies” | £30 | £22 |
To submit your views on the proposed fee changes, please visit the UKIPO’s website here. The consultation closes at 5pm on 29 January 2016.
If you have any queries regarding design protection, whether in the UK or overseas, please feel free to contact us.