There is a system in Canada already called the small entity system, whereby we pay lower fees for universities and small companies, although there again it's kind of risky sometimes for small companies to take advantage of that. The U.S. just introduced something called micro entity status, which is even smaller, and that's based on the number of patents you've filed. If you've filed a relatively low number of patents or you are a university, you can take advantage of even lower fees.
On June 12th, 2012. See this statement in context.