Qatar – Patent annuity payments

The Qatari authorities have recently updated their policy on the requirement to pay annuities in respect of patent applications.   Until now, it was possible to optionally defer the payment of patent annuities if the substantive examination of the application has taken more than 3 years to be completed.  The deferred annuities then became due upon the issuance of either an acceptance or grant decision.  However, the newly issued policy dictates that the 4th and subsequent annuities cannot be paid until the grant decision is issued, with no option to do so before that time.  Accumulated back annuities from the 4th annuity onwards are therefore now payable along with the grant fee, and then subsequent annuities are payable annually on each anniversary of the filing date.

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