The United States Patent & Trademark Office has set forth a proposed fee schedule for fiscal year 2025.
Proposed Patent Prosecution Fee Increases
For patent prosecutors, notably, the proposed fees for 2025 include a few new fees (that are in addition to normal filing fees). Specifically, for a continuation application, the proposed fees include a $2,200 surcharge for the application when the application is filed more than 5 years after the earliest priority date of the application; the proposed fees include a $3,500 surcharge for the application when the application is filed more than 8 years after the earliest priority date of the application. Therefore, for some applications that are still being mined for content, it may be beneficial to file continuation applications prior to the proposed fees going into effect.
The proposed fees also include increases with respect to Requests for Continued Examination (RCEs), with the fees significantly increasing as the number of RCEs filed in an application increases. For example, a third RCE for an undiscounted filer is proposed to be $3,600. It will be less expensive to file a continuation application rather than a third RCE, although the potential impact on patent term should be considered.
Other filing fees will go up by approximately 5%.
Additional information is available in the USPTO, Department of Commerce Notice, which describes the fee changes.
Trademark Fee Increases
Trademark fees are also increasing from 1.5 to 3 times the original cost.
Application Filing Fees
| Pre-approved ID filing fee per class |
$350 |
| Free-form ID filing fee per class |
$550 |
Proposed Surcharge Fees for Applications
| Fee for insufficient information §§ 1 and 44), per class |
$100 |
| For each additional group of 1,000 characters beyond the first 1,000 (§§ 1 and 44), per class |
$200 |
| Fee for insufficient information (§ 66(a)), per class |
$100 |
| For each additional group of 1,000 characters beyond the first 1,000 (§ 66(a)), per class |
$200 |
“Insufficient information” applies to anything listed in the basic application filing requirements under 37 C.F.R. 2.22. We typically see these problems arise in § 66(a) applications.
Pre-Registration Use Requirements
Amendments to Allege Use and Statements of Use are also increasing.
| Amendment to allege use |
$150 |
| Statement of use |
$150 |
Post-Registration Maintenance
| Combined declaration of use and incontestability |
$550 |
| Renewal |
$650 |
Note, § 71 declarations have also increased to $300.
Other, less common place fees have also increased. The Federal Register published the USPTO Proposed Rule, "Setting and Adjusting Trademark Fees During Fiscal Year 2025," in March 2024, which contains additional information.
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