The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore will implement major revisions to the official fees payable for patents, trade marks, registered designs and plant varieties matters at the Singapore IP office from Q3 2025. This was announced in IPOS Circular No. 3/2025 of 21 July 2025.

The changes are generally effective 1 September 2025, with some changes taking effect on 1 April 2026.

This post deals only with the impact on patents and patent applications. Further details are set out in the Annex. We have also written a post explaining how to calculate excess claims fees. For trade marks, registered designs and plant varieties, please see the blog post IPOS Official Fee Increases 2025 (Trade Marks, Registered Designs and Plant Varieties).

Please contact us if you would like more information on the fee changes, or if you have any questions.

Executive Summary: Changes

Executive Summary: Recommendations

If an application contains more than 15 claims, file a request for examination before 1 September 2025 to avoid the increased excess claims fees payable. Consider entering the Singapore national phase of a PCT application early, in order to do so.

File a voluntary amendment to reduce the number of claims, particularly where examination is requested on or after 1 September 2025.

If a negative Examination Report has been received on an application, and you are considering challenging the Examiner’s filings, file a request for review of the examination report before 1 September 2025/1 April 2026 to avoid the substantially increased examination review fees payable after those dates.

On granted patents where a renewal fee is due on or before 30 November 2025, pay the renewal fee before 1 September 2025.

Please get in touch to discuss the impact of these changes on your applications and to receive detailed recommendations to mitigate the effects of these changes.

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Changes Affecting Excess Claims Fees

Number of Fee-Free Claims Reduced

The first significant change is that excess claims fees will be payable for each claim over 15 in number. Currently, the fee-free threshold is 20 claims.

This change applies to applications where examination is requested on or after 1 September 2025. For applications where a request for examination (or a request for combined search and examination) is filed by 31 August 2025, the current threshold of 20 claims continues to apply.

Excess Claims Fees Assessed Throughout Examination

Currently, excess claims fees are payable at two points during the life of a patent application: (1) on requesting examination and (2) at grant. For applications where a request for examination (or a request for combined search and examination) is filed by 31 August 2025, excess claims fees will continue to be assessed at these two points.

Where a request for examination (or a request for combined search and examination) is filed on or after 1 September 2025, however, excess claims fees will now be assessed when requesting examination and at each response to a Written Opinion filed on or after 1 April 2026.

In other words, the new excess claims fees rules apply where a response to a Written Opinion is filed on or after 1 April 2026 (but only in respect of applications where examination or combined search and examination is requested on or after 1 September 2025).

Excess Claims Official Fee Increased

The official fee for each excess claims fee will rise to S$80, from the current S$40.

The new fee applies to applications where examination is requested on or after 1 September 2026. For such applications, the increased fee will be assessed at the point of requesting examination and at the filing of each response to a Written Opinion (filed on or after 1 April 2026).

So, from 1 September 2025 onwards, IPOS will charge an excess claims fee of S$80 for each claim over 15 in number, when an applicant requests examination or combined search and examination and when an applicant responds to each Written Opinion on or after 1 April 2026.

For applications where a request for examination, or a request for combined search and examination is filed by 31 August 2025, the current fee of S$40 continues to apply at requesting examination and at grant (and the fee-free threshold remains at 20). No excess claims fees are payable on filing a response to a Written Opinion for such applications.

Table 1 in the Annex compares the excess claims fees payable for examination requests filed before and after 1 September 2025.

Excess Claims Fees: Examples

An application with 20 claims currently attracts no excess claims fees. If a request for examination of this application of this application is filed on or after 1 September 2025, however, an official fee of S$400 is now due for the 5 claims above 15 in number.

An application with 30 claims currently attracts an excess claims fee of S$400. From 1 September 2025 onwards, however, the excess claims fee will increase to S$1,200 (a three-fold increase).

An application with 40 claims currently attracts an excess claims fee of S$800. From 1 September 2025 onwards, however, the excess claims fee will increase to S$2,000 (or 150%).

An application with 50 claims currently attracts an excess claims fee of S$1,200. From 1 September 2025 onwards, however, the excess claims fee will increase to S$2,800 (a S$1,600 increase).

For more examples, see Table 1 in the Annex.

Excess Claims Fees: Recommendations

The deadline for requesting examination on a Singapore patent application is 36 months from the earliest claimed priority date (or the date of filing, where there is no priority claim). The same deadline applies for requesting combined search and examination.

A request for examination (or a request for combined search and examination) may be made at any time after the application has been filed. For applications with a large number of claims (such as applications in the biotech and pharma space), the additional excess claims fees could be significant.

Where an application contains more than 15 claims, therefore, we recommend that a request for examination be made before 1 September 2025, to take advantage of the lower fees payable before that date. As explained above, a request for examination may be made at any time after the application is filed. It may even be sensible to enter the Singapore national phase of a PCT application early (and to request examination before the changes take effect), where this is warranted.

Where an applicant wishes to combine search and examination, then we recommend that the request for combined search and examination be made before 1 September 2025, for patent applications having 15 claims or more.

In any case, and particularly where a request for examination or combined search and examination is filed on or after 1 September 2025, applicants may wish to consider filing a voluntary amendment to reduce the number of claims presented for examination, before a request for examination or combined search and examination is made.

Fee Changes for Requesting Examination Review

The official fee for requesting a review of an examination review will increase from S$1,420 to S$2,150 for requests filed on or after 1 September 2025. This represents a fee increase of S$730, or 51%.

Subsequently, the official fee will increase yet again to S$3,200 for requests filed on or after 1 September 2025. This represents a fee increase of S$1,780 over the current fee, or a whopping 125%.

Details of the fee increases to the official fee for reqeusting review of an examination report are set out in Table 2A in the Annex (increase effective 1 September 2025) and Table 2B in the Annex (increase effective 1 April 2026).

Requesting Examination Review: Recommendations

Because of the steep increases in the official fee, where a negative Examination Report has been sent by IPOS, Applicants should consider requesting review of an examination report before the implementation dates of 1 September 2025 and 1 April 2026.

Fee Changes to Renewal Fees

There are small increases to renewal fees (also known as maintenance fees or annuity fees) for Singapore patents. These amount to a 7% increase, in the order of S$11 to S$90.

Please refer to Table 3 in the Annex for details of the fee increases.

Renewal Fees: Recommendations

IPOS has confirmed that, where the deadline for renewal falls after 1 September 2025, the old fees will be charged if the maintenance fee is paid before that date. However, if the annuity fee is paid late, then the new fees will apply (and you’ll of course also have to pay the late renewal fee).

Under Singapore patent law, it is only possible to pay a renewal fee from 3 months before the due date. Rule 51(1) of the Patents Rules states that:

“an application for…renewal [of a patent]…shall be filed in the 3 months ending with the fourth or, as the case may be, succeeding anniversary of the date of filing” (emphasis added)

Therefore, if the renewal date for a patent falls on or before 30 November 2025, it may be possible for cost savings to be made by paying the renewal fee by 31 August 2025.

Impact of Changes

The actual impact of the fee changes on each application will depend on the application in question.

A primary consideration will be the number of claims presented for examination as well as during prosecution. The impact on costs will also depend to a large degree on how long the patent is maintained following grant.

It is clear that for a large number of applications in the life sciences, biotech and pharmaceutical spaces, the fee changes will result in a substantial increase in costs.

Summary

The fee changes announced by IPOS are significant. It may be possible for some applicants to mitigate the effects somewhat by taking the recommended steps before the implementation dates of 1 September 2025 and 1 April 2026. However, the changes are likely to increase the costs of obtaining and maintaining a patent in Singapore, for a large number of cases.

This post only deals with some of the changes that have been announced. There are a number of other changes to fees and practice that are not being discussed in this post (particularly changes to trade mark and registered design fees). Details are also subject to change, particularly as the proposed legislative amendments to effect the fee increases have yet to be published.

Please get in touch with us if you would like more information on the fee changes, or if you have any questions on their impact.

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