# Patents and Utility Innovations in Malaysia

> Why the utility innovation certificate — Malaysia's cheaper route with no inventive-step test — is the option most SMEs never hear about, and the rules that catch first-time patent filers.

- Category: business
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-20
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/business/patent-malaysia

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Most Malaysian SMEs asking about a patent do not have a patentable invention.
They have an improvement — a better clamp, a different feed mechanism, a
reconfigured jig — that a competent engineer would call obvious. That fails the
inventive-step test in s.15 of the Patents Act 1983 and dies in substantive
examination. What almost nobody tells them is that Malaysia has a second route
where s.15 does not apply at all.

## What is a utility innovation?

Section 17 defines it as any innovation which creates a new product or process,
or any new improvement of a known product or process, capable of industrial
application. Section 17A(1) then applies the rest of the Act to utility
innovations subject to the modifications in the Second Schedule — and s.17A(2)
switches off **s.11, s.15, s.26 and Part X**.

Section 15 is the inventive step. Turning it off is the whole point: a utility
innovation must be **new** and **industrially applicable**, and that is the test.

| | Patent | Utility innovation |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Inventive step required | Yes (s.15) | No — s.17A(2) |
| Claims | Multiple, one inventive concept | **One claim only** |
| Term | 20 years from filing (s.35(1)) | 10 years from filing, plus two extensions of 5 years |
| Extension conditions | None — term is fixed | Affidavit showing commercial or industrial use in Malaysia, or explaining non-use |
| Annual fees start | Second year after grant, RM290 | Third year after grant, RM170 |
| Compulsory licensing | Applies (Part X) | Does not apply |
| Opposition to grant | RM2,500 (Form 26) | RM1,500 (Form 26A) |

The single claim is the real constraint. A patent can fence an invention with a
broad independent claim and narrower fallbacks; a utility innovation gets one
shot at the wording, so drafting matters more, not less.

## What it costs

From MyIPO's published fee schedule: request for grant of patent (Form 1) RM290;
substantive examination (Form 5) RM1,100; modified substantive examination
(Form 5A) RM640; expedited examination RM250 approval plus RM2,800; conversion
either way (Form 5G) RM290; extending a utility innovation certificate (Form 15)
RM150. Claims beyond the first ten cost RM20 to RM50 each.

Patent annual fees climb from RM290 in year 2 to RM2,900 in year 20. Utility
innovation annual fees start at RM170 in year 3 — but each five-year extension
requires an affidavit that the innovation is in commercial or industrial use in
Malaysia. An unused utility innovation quietly ends at ten years, which is
usually the honest answer anyway.

## Three rules that catch first-time filers

**File in Malaysia first.** Section 23A prohibits a resident from filing abroad
for the same invention unless a Malaysian application was filed at least two
months earlier, or the Registrar has granted written authority (Form 1B, RM200).
Breach is an offence under s.62A. Founders who file a US provisional first, on a
US investor's advice, are already in breach.

**You have twelve months, not six.** Section 14(3)(a) requires disclosure by the
applicant within one year before the application date to be disregarded. That is
a real safety net for a product already shown to customers — and it has no
equivalent in the Industrial Designs Act 1996, so a launched product may still be
patentable while its shape is no longer registrable.

**Non-residents cannot deal with the office directly.** Section 86(5) is absolute:
a person who is not a resident may not proceed before the Patent Registration
Office except through a patent agent.

## What changed on 31 December 2025

Post-grant opposition under s.55A had been on the statute book since the Patents
(Amendment) Act 2022 but was carved out of the commencement notification and sat
unproclaimed for nearly four years. P.U. (B) 362/2025 brought it, together with
s.56A, s.57(1), s.34(1) and s.79A(3), into operation on **31 December 2025**.
Any guide saying Malaysia has no administrative route to challenge a granted
patent describes the position before that date. An interested person may now
file a notice of opposition with the Registrar within the prescribed period from
publication of the grant, on the invalidity grounds in s.56(2)(a) to (c), and the
Registrar may maintain, amend or invalidate the patent.

## Common mistakes

**Filing a patent application for an obvious improvement.** You pay RM290 to file
and RM1,100 for substantive examination before anyone tells you it fails s.15.
Consider the utility innovation route before, not after.

**Assuming conversion is always available.** Section 17B(4A) says the prescribed
period for a conversion request cannot be extended under s.82. Miss it and the
route closes.

**Missing the examination request.** Regulation 27 gives 18 months from the
filing date to request substantive examination (four years for a national-phase
international application). Section 29A(5) deems the application withdrawn if you
do not.

**Reading MyIPO's hosted Patents Regulations as current.** The consolidated PDF
on myipo.gov.my predates the 2022 amendments and still shows two months to
respond to an examiner's report. P.U. (A) 68/2022 made it three.

## What's next

Decide which of the two you are actually eligible for before spending anything.
If the value is in how the product looks rather than how it works, the
industrial design route is cheaper and faster — but its novelty rules are far
less forgiving.

## Sources

- Patents Act 1983 (Act 291), updated text as at 1 November 2023 — https://www.myipo.gov.my/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Patents-Act-1987-Act-291.pdf (MyIPO)
- Patent Forms and Fees — https://www.myipo.gov.my/patent-forms-and-fees/ (MyIPO)
- Patent / Utility Innovation Basic — https://www.myipo.gov.my/patent-basic/ (MyIPO)
- Patents (Amendment) Act 2022 — Appointment of Date of Coming into Operation, P.U. (B) 362/2025 — https://lom.agc.gov.my/ilims/upload/portal/akta/outputp/3118998/PUB362_2025.pdf (Attorney General's Chambers)
- Patents (Amendment) Regulations 2022, P.U. (A) 68/2022 — https://lom.agc.gov.my/ilims/upload/portal/akta/outputp/1726098/PUA%2068.pdf (Attorney General's Chambers)

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