The USPTO recently announced its new patent fee schedule, which will take effect on October 2, 2020. In general, most fees will be increased by approximately 5 to 10 percent. For example, the basic filing fee for a utility application will be increased from $300 to $320, which is a 7 percent hike. Some fees will be increased more extensively, such as maintenance fee surcharge for late payment, which will be more than tripled, from $160 to $500. Other fees with significant increase include: request fee for expedited examination of a design application (from $900 to $1,600), issue and maintenance fees (approximately 20 percent increase throughout), and AIA trial fees, particularly inter partes review request fee (from $15,500 to $19,000) and post-grant review request fee (from $16,000 to $20,000). Further, following SAS Institute Inc. v. Iancu the IPR post-institution fee will now allow up to 20 claims but will be increased from $15,000 to $22,500. The new patent fee schedule also introduces some new fees and discontinues a few existing fees. Notably, starting January 1, 2022, non-DOCX filing surcharge of $400 will apply. Some fees will not see any change, including surcharge for late filing fee or non-English translation and PCT National Stage search fee when U.S. is the International Searching Authority. It appears that no fee is being reduced.

While the overall increase in the patent fees was not unexpected, the USPTO may be trying to induce applicants to be timelier when maintaining issued patents, and also dissuade more AIA trials by significantly increasing the associated fees.

It will be interesting to see how the new fee schedule will impact the patent prosecution process going forward.