Effective January 18, 2025, trademark applicants and registrants will face changes in USPTO trademark fees. The USPTO last increased existing fees and introduced some new fees in 2021. It published its final rule-making on trademark fees on November 18, 2024. The most significant changes are highlighted below.
Filing Fees for New Trademark Applications under Section 1(a), 1(b), 44(d), and 44(e)
The USPTO is eliminating its current two-tiered application system, which charged either $250/class (TEAS Plus) or $350/class (TEAS Standard).
Going forward, the USPTO will charge a $350/class fee for a "base application" claiming use, intent-to-use, foreign priority, or a foreign registration. To qualify for this Base Application fee, an application must include the following information:
- Applicant's name and domicile address
- Applicant's legal entity
- Citizenship of each individual applicant or the state/country of organization of each juristic applicant
- If applicant is a domestic partnership, the names and citizenship of the general partners; if the applicant is a joint venture, the names and citizenship of the active members of the joint venture
- If the applicant is a sole proprietorship, the state of organization of the sole proprietorship and the name and citizenship of the sole proprietor
- A statement of the filing basis (1(a), 1(b), 44(d), and/or 44(e))
- For a multi-class application, compliance with Trademark Rule 2.86, which requires proper classification and dates of use for use-based applications
- A filing fee for each class of goods and services covered
- A verified statement, dated and signed by an authorized representative of the applicant
- For standard word marks, a typed drawing of the mark
- For design or stylized marks, a digitized image of the mark and a description of the mark.
- If the mark will include a claim of color, the digitized image must be in color. The application also must include a statement naming the color(s) and describing where the color(s) appear(s) on the mark, and a claim that color is a feature of the mark
- If the mark includes non-English wording, an English translation of the wording
- If the mark includes non-Latin characters, a transliteration of the non-Latin characters
- If the mark includes an individual's name or likeness, either (1) a statement that identifies the living individual and that individual's written consent or (2) a statement that the name or likeness does not identify a living individual
- If the applicant owns one or more registrations for the same mark but the prior registrations' last-listed owner name is different than the applicant's name, a claim of ownership of the other registrations
- If the application is a concurrent use application, compliance with Trademark Rule 2.42
- If the applicant's domicile is outside the United States, a designated U.S. attorney, including the attorney's name, postal address, email address, and bar information
- Correctly classified goods and services, from the USPTO's Identification of Goods and Services Manual from within the form.
Insufficient Information Fee
If an application fails to satisfy any of the requirements for a Base Application, the USPTO will charge a $100/class insufficiency fee. This fee will apply to newly filed applications and to prior-pending TEAS Plus applications that fail to meet the requirements for a Base Application.
Use of the free-form text box to enter a description of goods and services instead of the USPTO's identification manual will not trigger the $100/class insufficient information fee. The new fee rules impose a different surcharge scheme for applications that use the free-form text box, described in the next section.
Identification of Goods and Services
The USPTO prefers applicants to select the goods and services in its application directly from the Identification of Goods and Services Manual within the application, as this reduces, if not eliminates, the need for Examining Attorney review of an application's identification statement.
If an applicant opts to use the application form's free-text box to enter its own identification statement, the USPTO will charge an additional fee of $200/class. Further, if the identification statement in the free-form text box is greater than 1,000 characters (which includes punctuation and spaces), the USPTO will charge a fee of $200/class for each additional 1,000 characters. The USPTO will not apply the excess character fee to amended identifications that exceed the character limit in response to an Office Action.
Maintenance Fees
Maintenance fees include Declarations of Continued Use (Section 8 or Section 71), Declarations of Incontestability (Section 15), and Renewal Declarations (Section 9). The USPTO is increasing its filing fees for each of these maintenance documents:
- Section 8 and Section 71 filings will increase from $225/class to $325/class
- Section 15 filings will increase from $200/class to $250/class
- Section 9 filings will increase from $300/class to $325/class
In-bound Madrid Filings
The USPTO is increasing the filing fee for in-bound filings under Section 66(a) from $500/class to $600/class. This fee increase will be effective February 18, 2025, as WIPO regulations require three months' advanced notice before a fee change may enter into force. Due to technical limitations at WIPO, the USPTO is not applying surcharges for insufficient information or for using the free-form text box to enter an identification statement for Section 66(a) applications.
Letters of Protest & Other Petitions
The USPTO is increasing the official fee to file a Letter of Protest from $50 to $150. It is also increasing the fee to file a Petition to the Director from $250 to $400 and the fee to file a Petition to revive an application from $150 to $250.
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.
