7 years
5-6 years
6 months from the earliest priority date.
- Grant fee: The applicant shall pay the granted announcement fee within 2 months from the date of issuance of the granted decision notice.
- Annuity: starting from the date of patent announcement for 4 years, the payment date of the annual fee for the fifth year is the publication date of the fourth year or the international publication date, and so on. Fees can be paid within 3 months before the due date of payment. If the patentee fails to pay the annual fee on time, the non-payment notice will be published on the official announcement, and the fee can be paid within a grace period of 6 months after the expiration, but a 50% penalty must be paid at the same time.
The novelty grace period is 6 months before the filing date/priority date.
1-1.5 years
The novelty grace period is 12 months before the filing date/priority date.
IPOPHIL conducts formality examination and substantive examination of utility model patent applications, but only needs to meet the standards of novelty and practicality, and does not require inventive step.
yes. The patent type can be converted from invention to utility model at any time before the patent application is granted/rejected. The converted patent application has the same filing date as the original application, and can only be converted once, and a conversion fee is required.
IPOPHIL conducts formality examination only for design applications.
- via Paris Convention : 12 months from earliest priority date.
- via Nationalization of PCT : 30 months from the earliest priority date.