4.5. Refunds and or Waivers

Fees are refunded where:

• The fee has been overpaid;
• Applications or other documents are taken not to have been filed;
• A fee is a duplicate payment;
• A fee has been incurred as a result of an officer error; or
• An inapplicable payment has been submitted by the customer.

All refunds or waivers must be considered and approved by the appropriate delegate, where necessary, before being processed.

5.1  Overpayments

5.1.1

Overpayment refunds are identified by Order Management Workbench (OMW) operators and are refunded immediately or queried with the relevant team so that a cheque can be issued by Accounting Operations.

5.2  New trade mark applications which are taken not to be filed

5.2.1

In the case of new trade mark applications which have the correct fee paid but are taken as not filed because they have not met the Minimum Filing Requirements after the two months period has expired, the RIO system will automatically send a refund notification to OMW along with the reason for the refund and the OMW operator will action the refund in OMW so that a cheque can be issued by Accounting Operations.

5.3  Other documents which are taken not to be filed

5.3.1

If an underpayment is not made good, the fee paid is refunded after three weeks by an OMW operator. This refund is identified by the action area responsible for notifying the underpayment and actions the refund in OMW so that a cheque can be issued by Accounting Operations.

5.4  Duplicate payments

5.4.1

If a duplicate payment is identified by the action area a refund request is sent to the delegate for consideration. If approved the request will be sent and actioned in OMW so that a cheque can be issued by Accounting Operations.

5.5  A fee has been incurred as a result of an officer error

5.5.1

If a fee has been incurred due to office error any refund or waiver needs to be considered and approved by the appropriate delegate as per the Accountable Authority Instructions (AAIs) before forwarding to OMW.

5.6  The refund and waiver process

5.6.1

Refunds are set up in OMW so that Accounting Operations can generate a refund request.  The refund cheque is drawn on Friday after the refund has been processed in OMW and is sent to the payee’s address within the next week.

5.6.2

Waivers are reconciled in OMW.  This will ensure relevant clock actions can occur.

5.6.3

All refund and waiver requests and approvals are to be saved to the relevant case file.

5.7  Payment not applicable

If a customer has paid a non-applicable fee (e.g., for an extra class that can/will not be added), a refund needs to be arranged.

To organise the refund, email tmmail@ipaustralia.gov.au with:

• the trade mark number.
• the fee to be refunded.
• The reason for the refund.