The second tranche of fee changes announced by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) in July 2025 took effect on 1 April 2026. The fee changes are intended to support sustainable operations and encourage higher quality filings. For patents, one of the key changes is the shift in excess claim fee payments from the grant stage to the response to written opinion stage, for examination requests filed on or after 1 September 2025. Another key change is that the fee for examination review has risen sharply. For trade marks, amendment fees have increased to encourage more accurate initial submissions.
Under the new fee structure, for applications where examination is requested on or after 1 September 2025, excess claim fees will be payable when requesting examination, and, with effect from 1 April 2026, upon responding to each Written Opinion issued if the number of excess claims is increased with the response. Excess claim fees will no longer be payable at the time of grant.
The table below sets out the fee changes effective from 1 April 2026.
| Form | Description | Fee Before 1 April 2026 | Fee From 1 April 2026 |
| Patents Form PF12B | Request for Examination Review | SGD 2150 | SGD 3200 |
| Patents Form PF13A | Response to Written Opinion (for examination requests on or after 1 September 2025) | SGD 0 | Excess claim fees of SGD 80 per claim over 15 claims |
| Patents Form PF14 | Payment of Grant Fee (for examination requests on or after 1 September 2025) | Excess claim fees of SGD 40 per claim over 20 claims | SGD 0 |
| Trade marks Form TM27 | Amendments to the specification, class number or the priority claim of a trade mark application | SGD 50 | SGD 60 |
| Trade marks Form TM27 | All other amendments to a trade mark application or registration (excluding change of name/ address/ address for service and amendments pertaining to the specification, class number or the priority claim) | SGD 50 | SGD 60 |
| Trade marks Form TM27 | Entry of disclaimer or limitation to a trade mark registration | SGD 50 | SGD 60 |
The flowchart and tables below show when excess claim fees are payable for patent applications, depending on the date of request for examination.
Requests for Examination before 1 September 2025
| No. of claims when requesting examination | No. of excess claims paid when requesting examination | No. of claims when responding to written opinion | No. of excess claims payable when responding to written opinion | No. of claims when paying grant fee | No. of excess claims payable when paying grant fee |
| 25 | 5 | 27 | NA | 27 | 2 |
| 25 | 5 | 23 | NA | 23 | 0 |
| 18 | 0 | 22 | NA | 22 | 2 |
| 18 | 0 | 16 | NA | 16 | 0 |
Requests for Examination on or after 1 September 2025
| No. of claims when requesting examination | No. of excess claims payable when requesting examination | No. of claims when responding to written opinion | No. of excess claims payable when responding to written opinion | No. of claims when paying grant fee | No. of excess claims payable when paying grant fee |
| 25 | 10 | 27 | 2 | 27 | NA |
| 25 | 10 | 23 | 0 | 23 | NA |
| 18 | 3 | 22 | 4 | 22 | NA |
| 18 | 3 | 16 | 0 | 16 | NA |
With excess claim fee pressure moved earlier in prosecution, applicants must manage excess claim costs from the outset and file concise claim sets. This reduces the burden of examining excessive claim sets and improves examination efficiency. Examination review is also substantially more expensive and warrants careful consideration. Whether a review is justified depends on the strength of the examiner's objections and the commercial value of the invention. Applicants can also consider other prosecution options like filing a divisional application instead of going for examination review. In any case, applicants should account for these fee changes when planning their prosecution strategy and budgets.
To discuss how these changes may affect your patent and trade mark applications in Singapore, reach out to our team at mail@marks-clerk.com.sg.
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