USPTO Fee Changes to Take Effect in January 2025: What You Need to Know

Starting January 19, 2025 the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has enacted across-the-board increases to patent prosecution and litigation fees, and some new fees have been introduced.

The PTO recently published its first fee increase since 2020. This fee increases are final and will take effect on January 19, 2025. All patent prosecution and litigation fees are increased at least 7.5%. All fees associated with the filing, searching, and examination of patents are increased at least 10%. Some fee increases are significantly higher. A summary of the fee increases appears in the Quick Reference Table provided at the end of this notice.

Selected significant fee increases include:

• Excess claim fees will double to $200 for each claim over 20 and increase 25% to $600 for each independent claim over 3. See 89 FR 91,918 here.
• A request for continuing examination (RCE) fee will increase for second and subsequent RCEs by 43%. See 89 FR 91,928 here.
• Fees associated with patent term extension will double or triple See 89 FR 91,926 here.
• Fees for Patent Trial and Appeal Board petitions will increase by 25% See 89 FR 91,936 here.
• For design patents, the aggregate of filing, search, examination, and issue fees will increase by about 48%. See 89 FR 91,914 here.

Selected new fees also include:

• A new information disclosure statement size fee with three tiers, 50–100 cumulative references ($200), 100–200 cumulative references ($500), and 200 or more cumulative references ($800) has been adopted. See 89 FR 91,923 here.
• A new fee for continuing applications was introduced, where “older” child applications pay up to $4,000 to file based on the “earliest benefit date.” See also 89 FR 91,908 here.

Quick-Reference Table: Selected Fee Changes for Undiscounted Entities¹

1The percent increase remains the same for all entities, but the dollar amounts are discounted for small entities by 60% and micro entities by 80%. See the table hyperlinks for dollar amounts and for more information.

Starting January 18, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) will implement a new few structure that affects trademark applications, trademark maintenance filings, and other-related trademark services.

Application filing fees have changed to incentivize more complete and timely filings and improve prosecution. The final rule replaces TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard fees with a single electronic filing option. The Madrid filing fee to the US increased slightly.

Post-Registration Maintenance Fees have increased but there are not increases to grace period fees.

Fees increased for State of Use (SOU) by 50%, but there was no increase in the cost to file extensions of time to file a State of Use.

Other significant changes that may impact clients:

Correct classification/identification of goods and/or services using the Office’s ID Manual and not exceeding the 1,000-character limit for each class, will have a financial benefit. Applicants in emerging fields may incur a high fee because the standard description may not be available.

A fee of $200 for each additional group of 1,000 characters beyond the first 1,000 (sections 1 and 44), per class.

A $200 surcharge for using the free-form text box to enter the identification of goods/services (sections 1 and 44), per class.

A $100 per class surcharge fee for applications that do not include all the information required at the time of filing.

If you have a trademark application that can be renewed prior to January 18, 2025, you may want to consider early renewal.

If you have a pending intent-to-use mark and have a statue of, use ready to file, you want to consider filing prior to January 18, 2025.