USPTO Announces Fee Changes

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced new fee rules - with many increased fees - effective January 16, 2018: PRESS RELEASE, NOTICE. Along with the announcement, the USPTO published a comparison table showing the magnitude of the fee changes relative to existing fees: TABLE.

Notable fee increases include:

• Utility Filing/Search/Examination: total increase of $120
• Provisional Filing: increase of $20
• Independent Claims in Excess of Three: increase of $40
• Claims in Excess of Twenty: increase of $20
• Utility/Reissue Issue Fee: increase of $40
• Submission of Sequence Listings Over 800MB: new fee of $10,000
• Inter Partes Review Request/Post-Institution: increase of $7,500

Please contact OBLON if you have any questions regarding the fee changes or their impact on your business.