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The Administrative Council of the European Patent Office has now decided to change the regulations with respect to the reduction of fees in connection with European patent applications as of April 1, 2014. The reduction in fees will in future be 30%. At the same time many of the procedural steps will be excluded from the reduction, however. The cost advantage will only be given for the filing fee and the examination fee. Moreover only certain applicants will profit from the reduction. These are natural persons and non-profit organizations, universities as well as public research organizations. Furthermore small and medium-sized enterprises can profit from the reduction of fees. In order to be considered as small and medium-sized company, a company may have no more than 250 fully employed persons. Furthermore it may have an annual turnover of at most 50 Mio. EUR or at most 43 Mio. EUR annual balance sheet.
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