13.01.2025
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has
announced significant increases to certain patent fees, impacting
patent applicants, owners, and challengers.
Thank you
The rule is effective on January 19, 2025 and sets or adjusts 433 patent fees for undiscounted, small, and micro entities, including the introduction of 52 new fees.
The USPTO is adjusting by approximately 7.5% all patent fees not covered by the targeted adjustments. The routine fees to obtain a patent (i.e. filing, search, examination, and issue fees) are set to increase relative to the current fees to ensure financial sustainability and accommodate increases needed to improve the predictability and reliability of patent intellectual property protection. The filing, search and examination fees not covered by the targeted adjustments are adjusted by an additional 2.5% on top of the 7.5% across-the-board adjustment, for a total front-end increase of 10%.
Targeted adjustment fees
Applicants who meet the eligibility criteria for small or micro entity discounts will continue to pay a reduced fee for the fees eligible for discount. For targeted adjustment fees, the USPTO will continue to offer discounted fees for applicants that qualify for the “small entity” or “micro entity” statuses. Small entity fees are set to 40% of the undiscounted fees, while micro entity fees are set to 20% of the undiscounted fees. Some key targeted changes for the undiscounted entity fees include:
Continuing application fees
The USPTO set a new tiered fee for filing continuing applications (continuations, divisional applications, and continuations-in-part) more than six or nine years after the earliest benefit date, or presenting delayed benefit claims. The fees are $2700 and $4000 for the six and nine years benefit claims, respectively.
Design patent application fees
The design patent application fees for filing increases by 36%, the search fee by 88% and the issue fee by 76%.
Excess claim fees
USPTO has increased the excess claims fees for non-provisional applications. For applications with more than 20 claims, the fee increased by 100% and is set to $200 for each excess claim. When the application is filed with more than three independent claims, the USPTO has proposed a 25% increase, bringing the fees to $600 for each excess claim.
Extension of time for provisional applications fees
While the extension of time fee for most of the patent applications will be increased in accordance with the across-the-board proposal, the USPTO reduces the financial burden on applicants who are still determining whether to move forward with a nonprovisional application. The USPTO implements a decrease by an average of 81% to extension of time fees for provisional applications.
Information disclosure statements fees
The USPTO introduces new fees for filing large information disclosure statements, ranging from $200 to $800.
Request for continued examination fees
The request for continued examination fees increases for both first and subsequent examinations by 10% and 43%, respectively.
Our advice
Applicants who are considering filing continuation and divisional applications or applications with large claim sets may want to file before January 19, 2025. In some cases, because excess claim fees are doubling and excess independent costs also are increasing, it might be more cost-effective to file a second application to target additional subject matter and claims.
Filing continuation applications in parallel can help reduce the risk for later-filed continuations.
Diana Șerbănescu
Thank you
