USPTO Increases fees – Major Impacts

The USPTO will increase selected fees and add new fees, effective January 19, 2025. According to the USPTO, “the fee adjustments are needed to provide the USPTO with sufficient aggregate revenue to recover the aggregate estimated costs of patent operations in future years.” See link to Federal Guidelines below.

A. Changes to Existing Fees

Most notably, the increases to existing fees include:

1. US National Stage Application Fees

US National Application base filing fees will increase from 1,660 USD to 1,810 USD (664 USD to 724 USD for Small Entities).

2. US Non-National Stage Application (35 U.S.C. 111(a)) Fees

Base filing fees for Nonprovisional applications filed directly in the U.S. under 35 U.S.C. 111(a), including divisional or continuation applications of National Stage Applications, will increase from 1,820 USD to 2,000 USD (728 USD to 800 USD for Small Entities).

3. Excess Claim Fees

Excess claim fees will significantly increase – double for excess claims over twenty (20)! Accordingly, it is highly recommended to reduce claims to 20 total / 3 independent claims, upon filing or shortly after filing.

4. RCE (Request for Continued Examination) Fees

RCE fees will significantly increase as well, particularly for the 2^nd+ RCE. Given the high cost of an RCE,  an Applicant may strongly wish to consider entering the Appeal process. For comparison, the costs for entering the Appeal process (fees of which will also increase) are also listed below.

5. Extension Fees

Extension fees will increase as well, rendering non-timely filed responses more costly than ever.

6. Issue Fee

The fee for proceeding from allowance to issuance of a US Patent (Issue Fee) will increase slightly: $1,200 -> $1,290 (Large Entity) and  $480 -> $516 (Small Entity).

B. New Fees

Effective January 19, 2025, there are also new fees for continuing applications (continuation, divisional, or continuation-in-part applications) filed over 6 years and 9 years from the application’s earliest benefit date, as well as new fees for IDS listings with over 50 cumulative cited references. The new fees are presented below:

1. New Fees for Continuing Applications, based on earliest effective filing date.

Of note, the earliest benefit date (EBD) cannot be the filing date of a foreign application or the filing date of a provisional application to which benefit is claimed under  35 U.S.C. 119(e).

2. New IDS Fees

There will be new fees, based on the total number of cited references to the USPTO in an IDS, when greater than fifty (50) references.

For more information and the specific fees, please see Federal Guidelines

If you have any questions on this article or on US patents generally, please contact a member of our US IP Team.