Are claims cancelled by a Preliminary Amendment considered in determining additional claim fees?

When a claim is cancelled by a Preliminary Amendment, it does not count toward the determination of additional claim fees. This is because a Preliminary Amendment is made to alter the application before it is officially examined, and the claims that are cancelled in this manner are no longer considered part of the application for fee calculation purposes.

The rationale behind this policy is that the additional claim fees are intended to account for the actual claim load that the patent office has to examine. Since cancelled claims are effectively removed from the application, they do not contribute to the total number of claims being considered. As a result, any calculations regarding additional fees are based solely on the claims that remain active in the application.

This rule helps streamline the examination process and ensures that applicants are not penalized with extra fees for claims they have chosen to remove prior to the examination. Only active claims, as defined by what remains in the application post-amendment, will influence the fee structure.