From 18 January 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") will adjust its fees, with its rationale being that these increases are necessary to provide themselves with the necessary resources to administer the US trademark system.
As such, new surcharges/fees to the trademark application system have been introduced, which will result in increases to bills for prospective trademark owners.
A summary of the fee changes can be found at the end of the article.
1 – Application Fees
Notably, the USPTO will replace its two types of applications, the TEAS Standard and Plus application, with a single Base application, comprising of a fee of $350, per class. Three possible surcharges may also apply to this base application due to:
- Insufficient information being provided in an application per class ($100);
- Failure to use the USPTO's Acceptable identification of Goods and Services Manual for goods and services ($200); and
- Exceeding 1,000 characters per class for the goods/services description ($200).
These changes highlight the need for owners to provide sufficient information for their marks to be registered in the US and to keep those applications as concise as possible.
In considering whether you have provided sufficient information to avoid the new fee outlined above, the USPTO, in its Final Rule dated 18 November 2024, provides the following should be included in your Base application:
- The applicant's name and address;
- The type of entity the applicant is;
- Citizenship of each applicant, or the country that the applicant was incorporated in;
- If the applicant is a partnership, the name and citizenship of each partner;
- The filing basis of the trademark;
- Statement that the mark is in use or the applicant has a bona fide intention to use the mark on all of the goods/services listed;
- English translation of any non-English mark;
- If the mark includes non-Latin characters, a transliteration of the characters;
- If the mark includes an individual's name or likeness, a statement that identifies the living individual as well as their written consent or a statement that the name or likeness does not identify a living individual;
- Whether the application is a concurrent use application;
- The designated representative of the applicant if the applicant is not a resident of the US; and
- Correctly classified goods and/or services.
Additionally, the USPTO have slightly increased the base application fee for WIPO/Madrid applications to $600 per class. However, these applications will not be subject to the surcharge fees outlined above.
2 – Post-Registration and Other Fees
To continue balancing the cost of base applications, offset higher processing costs for those filings and rebalance fee collections from those fees due to changes in demand, the USPTO has also increased fees for post-registration filings.
This includes sections 8 and 71 declarations, to indicate that you have used the trademark, section 15 declarations, of the incontestability of the mark and section 9 registration renewal applications. Sections 8 and 71 applications will now cost $325 per class, section 15 will cost $250 per class and section 9 registration renewal applications will cost $325 for each class.
Lastly, petitions to revive an application and letters of protest have had their fees increased by $100 with Petitions to the Director increased by $150.
3 – Fee Change Summary
3.1 – Application Fees
3.2 – Surcharge Fees
3.3 – Post Registration Fees
3.4 – Petitions and Letters of Protest
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.