3.5. Fees: Hearing fees

Date Published

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).

Amended Reasons

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