IPA design hearing-fees — IP Australia Designs Examiners' Manual – 3.5. Fees: Hearing fees

Most proceedings before the Registrar of Designs commence with a request and payment of a fee. Most commonly, these are hearing requests relating to examination. Certain contested proceedings, particularly ownership issues, may be commenced without a fee. But if any party to an ownership proceeding wants to be heard, the standard hearing fees apply. The fee amounts can be found in schedule 4 . Despite the usual invitation to pay (ITP) regime being in place, we are not able to schedule a hearing until the fee is paid (or waived) (reg 11.07 (2)). Also, a person who fails to pay to attend a hearing may not attend (reg 11.08 ). The fee for the person asking for a hearing is $600 (item 11 at sch 4). The fee for anyone else who would like to attend the hearing is also $600 (item 12 at sch 4). There is no differentiation of the fees when paying online - customers are asked to pay the one fee to request or attend a hearing. The fee schedule is set up to accommodate multi-day hearings, though in practice these are rare. If a hearing were to run into a second day, all attending parties would need to pay the fee at item 12. There is also a fee prescribed for filing a notice of opposition. The only formal oppositions prescribed in the legislation are to extensions of time under s 137 of over 3 months, and to proposed corrections advertised under reg 9.05 (4) that would materially alter the meaning or scope of a register entry. The cost in both cases is $600. If an ITP is issued for either notice of opposition, no other action will be taken by this office until that fee is paid (or waived).