Per a slightly ambiguous notice from the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission released July 24, 2024 (财政部 国家发展改革委关于调整优化专利收费政策的通知), annuity fees will be reduced by 15% for Chinese patents for participating in China’s open licensing system. As of the time of writing, there were over 2,000 open licenses published on China’s Intellectual Property Administration’s (CNIPA) online publication system.
Specifically, section 2 reads:
A 15% reduction in annual patent fees during the implementation period of patent open licensing. If other patent fee reduction policies are also applicable, the most favorable policy can be selected, but it cannot be enjoyed repeatedly.
However, it is unclear if this requires an actual license or simply having an offer to license published on CNIPA’s open license system.
In addition, there appears to be an additional annuity fee due for patents that receive patent term compensation (presumably for both patent term extensions for pharmaceutical patents and patent term adjustment for CNIPA delay in patent examination). It is unclear if this additional annuity is due for the entire patent term or just for the added patent term.
Specifically, section 1 reads, in part:
A patent owner who files a request for patent term compensation shall pay a patent term compensation request fee.
If a request for patent term compensation is found to meet the conditions for term compensation upon review, an annual patent compensation fee shall be paid…
CNIPA earlier this month also released additional information about open licensing system including royalty rates.
The full text of the Notice if available here (Chinese only).
