IPOS Fee Updates 

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The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (“IPOS”) conducts regular reviews to ensure fees reflect the evolving needs of the IP ecosystem and support sustainable operations. IPOS has recently announced updates to their official fees, with the last review being in 2022.

 

The key updates are as follows:

• Increase in trade marks application fee for cases where the description of goods/services are not pre-approved;

• Increase in Madrid international registration fees, subsequent designation fees and transformation fees;

• Increase in Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) search and preliminary examination fees;

• Increase in trade marks and patents renewal fees;

• Increase in patents excess claim fee and lower threshold from 20 claims to 15 claims;

• Shift in patents excess claim fee payment from grant stage to the response to written opinion stage;

• Increase in certain amendment fees for trade marks and designs;

• Increase in certain extension of time fees;

• Increase in designation fees for representative to receive take-down notice for copyright cases; and

• Decrease in application fee for plant varieties.

 

For full details of the fee updates, please see Annex A [PDF, 289 KB].

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Most of the fee changes will come into effect on 1 September 2025, but some will only take effect on 1 April 2026. Some of the revised fees are introduced in two phases, for instance, in the case of patent examination review and trade mark amendments.

 

Apart from sustainable operations, it appears that the fee changes are implemented to encourage examination efficiency. For example, the costs of excess claims have increased, and the threshold number has lowered to encourage concise claim sets. The increase in excess claim fees is hefty, from S$40 to S$80 per excess claim. These fees will be due at the time of requesting examination from 1 September 2025. For any examination requests made on or after this date, excess claim fees will also be payable for any further claims that are added at the time of responding to a Written Opinion from 1 April 2026. Renewal fees are increased to encourage the release of non-utilised IP into the public domain. Interestingly, the application fee for plant varieties protection has reduced.

 

Recommendations:

Naturally, these fee updates should not override your IP strategy, and some of the increases are not too significant. However, you may wish to consider some of the following suggestions:

• Accelerate your plans to file new trade mark applications prior to the fee increase

• File examination requests early if your application has more than 15 claims to avoid higher excess claims fees

• Voluntarily amend claims to reduce total number before requesting examination or responding to Written Opinions, if you are subject to the excess claim fee

• Request examination review if challenging a negative report

• Pay renewal fees early to lock in lower rates

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.​​​​