The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a final rule that will adjust trademark and patent fees in 2025. The USPTO has set or adjusted 433 patent fees (effective January 19) and 28 trademark fees (effective January 18). The highlights are summarized below.

Complete information on the fee adjustments is available on the USPTO’s fee-setting webpage. The Federal Register has also published information on the new patent and trademark fees.

Key Highlights of New Patent Fees:

1. Patent fees will increase by 7.5% each if not subject to a targeted adjustment.
2. Front-end patent fees including filing, search, and examination fees will increase by another 2.5%, resulting in a 10% total increase.
3. There are several new continuing application fees, ranging from $540 to $4,000.
4. Design patent fees are subject to targeted adjustments, ranging from 9% to 88%.
5. The fee for patents filed with more than 20 claims will increase by 100% from $100 for each claim in excess of 20 to $200 for each claim in excess of 20, while the fee for patents filed with more than three independent claims will increase by 25% from $480 per claim in excess of 3 to $600 per claim in excess of 3.
6. Provisional applications will be subject to a new decreased fee schedule for extensions of time.
7. There are new fees of up to $800 relating to Information Disclosure Statements based on the cumulative number of references cited.
8. A new $452 fee will be imposed for requesting Director Review of Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions.
9. All America Invents Act trial fees will increase by 25%.
10. Patent Term Extension Application fees will decrease from $6,700 to $2,500.

Key Highlights of New Trademark Fees:

1. $100 will be charged per class for insufficient information in the application.
2. $200 will be charged per class for using the free-form text box instead of the USPTO’s Trademark ID Manual to identify goods and services and for each additional group of 1,000 characters in the free-form text box beyond the first 1,000.
3. Fees for post-registration maintenance filings are increasing to $325, except for the Section 15 declaration filing fee which will increase to $250.
4. The fee for petitions to the director will increase to $400; petitions to revive an application to $250; and letters of protest to $150.
5. After 22 years of no increases, the fees per class for amendments to allege use and statements of use will increase from $100 to $150.

We suggest reviewing the status of any planned or in-progress applications to determine if action can be taken now to avoid fee increases in January. If you would like to discuss how these fee changes will affect your trademark or patent prosecution strategy going forward, please contact a Tucker Ellis attorney.