The USPTO has recently published its proposed 2025 patent and trademark fee increases for commentary. There’s a lot to process, so we thought it might be helpful to highlight some of the major USPTO fee changes for you.
Let’s dig in!
Proposed Patent Updates
The justification for the patent fee increases is the need to increase funding for the USPTO’s increasingly expensive operations. It’s also hoped that the new patent fees will enable investment that will help reduce the time to process applications and decrease fraud.
You’ll find that all fees are increasing by at least 5% and some are increasing by up to 100%. Basic application fees for utility models (undiscounted) will be increasing from $320 to $350, a 9% increase. That’s a meaningful increase but probably isn’t going to break the bank.
Where things start to get interesting is with excess claim fees. Each independent claim above three will cost $600, a 25% increase over today’s $480. Each claim above 20 will cost $200, a 100% increase over today’s fee of $100.
Let’s compare current and future application costs for a utility application with 30 claims and 150 pages (undiscounted, no law firm fees):
| Fee Description | Today | 2025 | Difference |
| Basic Filing Fee | 320 | 350 | 30 |
| Additional Claims (10) | 1000 | 2000 | 1000 |
| Additional Sheets (50) | 420 | 440 | 20 |
| Search Fee | 700 | 770 | 70 |
| Examination Fee | 800 | 880 | 80 |
| Total | 3,240 | 4,440 | 1,200 |
Under this scenario, applicants will pay approximately 37% more in 2025. But wait – there’s more! This is just the beginning – there are new fees and other increases throughout the prosecution, grant, and maintenance phases. We’ll cover those in future posts.
Proposed Trademark Updates
Trademark owners and applicants will also see changes in 2025. In addition to fee increases, there are several changes targeted at improving the efficiency of filing and prosecution, which will lead to several filing options and fees being phased out.
For trademark applicants, there are several changes proposed to the application process. The TEAS and TEAS Plus options will be eliminated in favor of a single electronic filing option. This new option will be priced at $350 per class, the same as the current standard TEAS option and one hundred dollars more than the current TEAS plus option.
The elimination of TEAS is just the beginning of the changes:
- There will be a new fee ($200) for each additional 1,000-character block that exceeds a new 1,000-character per class limit for free-form descriptions of goods and services.
- Fees charged for Madrid applications will decrease to be aligned with domestic application costs ($350).
- Fees to allege use and statements of use will increase from $100 to $150.
- Section 9 registration renewal application costs will increase from $300 to $350 per class.
- Section 8 declaration costs per class will increase from $225 to $300 per class.
USPTO Fee Increase Resources
Want to learn more about the proposed fee updates? Below, you’ll find several links that will help you explore the proposed updates on your own.
USPTO Fee Setting Page:
https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/performance-and-planning/fee-setting-and-adjusting
Spreadsheet of Proposed Patent Fees: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Patent-Fees-Current-Proposed-Unit-Cost-NPRM-2024.xlsx
Spreadsheet of Proposed Trademark Fees:
