New Year Brings New Fees

On November 18, 2024 and November 20, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) published its Final Rules regarding adjustments to trademark and patent fees, respectively. With changes to trademark fees taking effect January 18, 2025 and patent fees taking effect January 19, 2025, we have provided a summary below of the changes for commonly encountered fees.

Trademark Fees

In general, the USPTO indicated that it considers promoting innovation strategies, aligning fees with the full cost of trademark services, setting fees to facilitate effective administration of the trademark system, and offering application processing options as the four key factors in adjusting fees. With this in mind, the majority of fees are increased by amounts ranging from $25 – $100.

However, the Final Rule will replace the TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard application options with a base application that is comparable to the TEAS Plus. The fee associated with the base application will increase the TEAS Plus application fee by $100. In place of the TEAS Standard application, the USPTO has introduced a $200 fee associated with custom identification of goods or services.

Patent Fees

In general, the USPTO increased all patent fees, not otherwise addressed with targeted adjustments, by 7.5% in the Final Rule. It identified this “across-the-board adjustment” as balancing its projected aggregate revenue and aggregate costs. At the higher end, the USPTO will raise filing, search, and examination fees by an additional 2.5%, totaling a front-end increase of 10%.

The below table addresses commonly encountered fees that have been specifically adjusted, in conjunction with discounts introduced by the USPTO for small and micro entities in relation to some fees.