If your patent application is accepted and you obtain a patent in Canada, you have the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention for a maximum of 20 years from the day you filed your application in Canada.

Maintenance fees

To maintain your patent in force over this 20-year period, you must pay annual maintenance fees. You must pay a maintenance fee for your patent or patent application every year, starting on the second anniversary of your filing date. For example, if you filed on January 31, 2022, your first maintenance fee would have been be due on January 31, 2024.  You can pay your maintenance fees on a yearly basis or pay for several years at once. The fees increase on the 5th, 10th and 15th anniversaries of the filing of the patent application.

If you do not pay the fee within the payment deadline, your patent will lapse, which means that other people will be allowed to use the invention without your permission. If the required fee is not paid before the payment deadline and the patent lapses, it can be revived within 12 months after giving a written request for reinstatement together with the payment of the maintenance and late payment fees.

The latest you can pay your missed payment and late fee is whichever of the following comes later:

• 6 months after your maintenance fee is due
• 2 months after you receive the Commissioner’s notice saying that they must be paid

If you still don’t pay your fees during this period, one of the following will apply:

• your application will be considered abandoned (click here to learn how to reinstate your abandoned application)
• your patent will be deemed expired (click here to learn how to reverse the deemed expiry of the patent)

Maintenance fees are government fees and are subject to change. Click here for more information on patent fees.

Other information regarding fees

• the Commissioner of Patents must notify an applicant of a missed maintenance fee for a pending application or an issued patent, at which time the applicant must pay the applicable fee and a late fee no later than two months from the date of the notice or six months from the anniversary due date to avoid the application becoming abandoned; and
• any person (not just the agent appointed to act as representative, if one has been appointed) can pay the maintenance fees associated with the patent application.

								
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