Annuity Payer - Default

Please review these instructions on selecting an entity status. Scroll to the bottom to select your entity status.

Entity status of the patent owner can have significant impact on the annuity cost. In the United States, the patent owner can be classified under three entity types:

Large Entity – Large Entity status means you will pay the full official renewal fee.

Unless you qualify as small entity or micro entity, you are considered to be a large entity.

Annuity Payer will calculate renewal cost under the large entity status unless you specified otherwise.

Small Entity - Small Entity status entitles you to a 50% discount to the full official renewal fee.

Small entity according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) applies to U.S. patents owned by inventors, small business concerns with fewer than 500 employees, universities, and non-profit organizations.

It is important to note, that if the patent is assigned, transferred or licensed, or is subject to an obligation to assign, transfer or license, to another company that is not a “small entity”, you will not be eligible to pay the reduced, small entity fee.

The USPTO advises all patent owner to check for the loss of small entity status prior to paying each maintenance fee on a patent. Patent owner is further required to notify the USPTO of any change in status resulting in loss of entitlement to small entity status. The status change must be filed for a patent prior to paying, or at the time of paying, the earliest renewal fee due after the date on which status as a small entity is no longer appropriate.

Micro Entity – Micro entity status entitles you to a 75% discount to the full official renewal fee.

To qualify as a micro entity, an applicant must meet all of the following criteria:

Qualify as a USPTO-defined small entity.

Not be named on more than four previously filed applications.*

Not have a gross income more than three times the median household income in the previous year from when the fee(s) is paid. For 2011, the most recent year that data is available, the median income was $50,054

Annuity Payer will not conduct any independent verification to your entity status, all renewal calculation and payment are conducted solely based on the entity status as represented by you.

If you are in any doubt about your entity status, please consult your patent attorney or take the precautionary action of upgrading to large entity.

Furthermore, if a payment is submitted that conflicts with the USPTO record of the patent owner’s entity status, a notice relating to entity status will be sent to the fee submitter, and this may require additional reply and processing fee.

Please note, the small and micro entity discount apply only to the official renewal fee only, the discount does not apply to any service fee.

Annuity Payer assumes no responsibility or liability to any loss of patent rights or monetary loss due to improper entity status selection.

Entity Status

1.1

These conditions shall govern and be incorporated into every contract made by Annuity Payer ("us", "we" and cognate terms) or on our behalf with clients ("you") for the provision of intellectual property related professional services ("Services") and shall subject to condition 1.2 below prevail over any terms or conditions contained or referred to in any documents submitted by you or previously submitted by us or in correspondence or elsewhere

1.2

Acceptance by you of, or instructions by you to perform, Services shall constitute unqualified acceptance of these conditions.

1.3

A variation of these conditions is valid only if it is in writing and signed by or on behalf of us.

1.4

No failure to enforce or delay in enforcing any of these conditions shall operate as a waiver of any of them and no partial or single exercise shall prevent any other or future exercise of that or any other right.

2.1

A contract shall arise between us on whichever is the earlier of our actual receipt of your instructions (electronic instructions via Annuity Payer website, or other written instructions in letter or facsimile transmission) to act or a renewal notice issued by us and our acting upon your instructions.

3.1

Unless otherwise agreed, you are solely responsible for any deadlines concerning your patent or patent portfolio. We will not monitor any deadlines concerning your patent or patent portfolio and we will not take any actions unless we have received instructions for you to do so

3.2

We shall not be liable for any loss due to your failure to instruct us in a clear, complete and timely fashion and we shall not be under any obligation to take any steps to preserve or to protect your rights further. Any instructions submitted to the Annuity Payer website or otherwise submitted to us is deemed to be incomplete until necessary payment has been received and verified by us.

3.3 A condition to our acting on your behalf will be that you respond promptly, clearly and completely to any request we may make for instructions, information, technical data, documents and payment of fees. Failure to do so will be deemed as incomplete instruction

3.4

You agree that we may rely and act upon instructions from your authorised agent whose details you have supplied to us until we receive your written signed instructions to the contrary

3.5

Subject to these conditions we will proceed on the basis that our duty to you is to do what we consider is necessary properly to protect and preserve your rights

3.6

In order to provide the Services we may need to instruct local agents practising in the jurisdiction of each relevant registry or other independent specialist providers. The naming of any third party referral firm(s) in our correspondence is not intended to give rise to any agency relationship. Each party is intended to be a principal in its own right and the contract for the Services is between you and us only, in accordance with these conditions.

All official fee information (fees set by the patent offices) presented by us are based on the posted official fees available in the public domain. Although we strive to maintain the current and correct official fee information, we do not guarantee the correctness of the fee information and they are subject to change without notice

4.1

Any sums of money that may at any time require to be converted from one currency into the currency in which we have agreed to invoice you will be so converted at our rates from time to time.

4.2

All charges are subject to variation in the light of changes to underlying charges and/or for correction of errors.

4.3

On each occasion in relation to the renewal of a particular intellectual property right, the fee present to you via the Annuity Payer website constitutes our best estimate of the likely total aggregate fee likely to be payable in respect thereof (including the Administration Charge, the Country Charge and the Official Fee) on the basis that the transaction proceeds in an expected and standard manner. Your instruction to us to proceed (whether express or, if otherwise so agreed, by failure to instruct us not to proceed) shall constitute your acceptance of, and agreement to pay such fee and, if applicable, to pay later after they have arisen and been invoiced any supplements thereto that may arise or become appropriate in the light of any unexpected work, change of circumstances or further expenses becoming necessary. We shall submit to you an invoice for the amount of such estimate after your instruction or deemed instruction to us to proceed.

4.4

VAT and any other relevant tax or duty payable, if any, by you on our supply of Services shall be added to all fees.

4.5

You acknowledge that it is our policy not to pay accumulated annuities or back fees arising in certain countries at the time of grant or acceptance of an application, and it is your responsibility to arrange payment of such fees directly with your associate

5.1

Unless otherwise agreed, any instructions submitted to the Annuity Payer website or otherwise submitted to us is deemed to be incomplete until necessary payment has been received and verified by us.

5.2

For services where you will receive invoices from us, payment of invoices shall be made in full within 30 days from the date that our invoice is issued. Time shall be of the essence of payment. Interest will be charged on any amounts overdue at the rate of 1.5% per month or part thereof. We may suspend the supply of Services to you where any amounts are overdue under any contract until all such amounts have been paid.

5.3

If in our opinion your creditworthiness deteriorates before completion of performance of our Services we may require full or partial payment of all or any fees prior to performance or the provision of security by you in a form acceptable to us.

5.4

We shall be entitled to offset any amount owing to us from you against any amount owed to you by us.

6.1

Each of you and we undertake to the other that it will not during the term of this agreement or at any time thereafter use, divulge or communicate to any person, except its professional representatives or advisers or as may be required by law or any legal or regulatory authority or pursuant to performance of its obligations under a contract made pursuant hereto, any confidential information relating to the other's business, financial or other affairs which is not in the public domain concerning the other party which may have, or may in future, come to its knowledge under the provisions hereof and each of you and we shall use reasonable endeavours to prevent the publication or disclosure of any such information. This provision shall not apply to information already known to the receiving party prior to its receipt hereunder or which subsequently comes into the public domain or its knowledge other than as a result of a breach hereof.

7.1

Unless otherwise agreed, either you or we may terminate our provision of the Services by giving to the other not less than one year's notice in writing expiring at any time.

7.2

On or at any time after the occurrence of any of the events in condition 7.3, we may suspend further performance of Services for you and/or terminate any contract with you with immediate effect by written notice to you.

7.3

The events are:

(a)	you being in breach of an obligation under a contract with us;
(b)	you passing a resolution for your winding up or a court of competent jurisdiction making an order for your winding up or dissolution;
(c)	your entering administration, the making of an administration order in relation to you or the appointment of a receiver over, or an encumbrancer taking possession of or selling, any of your assets;
(d)	your making an arrangement or composition with your creditors generally or applying to a court of competent jurisdiction for protection from your creditors.

7.4

Upon any termination, any of your indebtedness to us shall become immediately due and payable and we shall be under no further obligation to provide any Services to you.

7.5

These conditions shall govern and be incorporated into every contract made by Annuity Payer Limited ("us", "we" and cognate terms) or on our behalf with clients ("you") for the provision of intellectual property related professional services ("Services") and shall subject to condition 1.2 below prevail over any terms or conditions contained or referred to in any documents submitted by you or previously submitted by us or in correspondence or elsewhere.

7.6

The details of the Services that we shall provide to you are set out in our operating procedures (the "Operating Procedures"). We may change the Services and/or Operating Procedures at any time upon written notice to you.

7.7

Acceptance by you of, or instructions by you to perform, Services shall constitute unqualified acceptance of these conditions.

7.8

A variation of these conditions is valid only if it is in writing and signed by or on behalf of us.

7.9