USPTO Proposes Increase in Trademark-Related Fees - Effective November 2024
On May 8, 2023, the Director of the USPTO notified the Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC) of its intention to set or adjust trademark-related fees. The Office submitted a preliminary trademark fee proposal with supporting materials: the proposed fee schedule and associated materials may be found here. Anyone wishing to present oral testimony at the hybrid public hearing scheduled on Monday, June 5, 2023, from 1-3 p.m. ET, must submit a request in writing no later than May 26, 2023. Written comments on proposed trademark fees will be accepted until June 12, 2023.
As a fee-funded agency, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) must periodically assess and adjust fees to ensure our fee collections finance the aggregate costs necessary to register and maintain accurate and reliable trademarks. We recently completed a comprehensive trademark fee review, with the conclusion that we should adjust fees to increase aggregate revenue and refine certain fees to efficiently finance ongoing operations. The first steps in the fee adjustment process are to deliver our trademark fee proposal to the TPAC and engage the public. Given the statutory and regulatory timeline for setting and adjusting fees, we anticipate any fee changes will be implemented on or around November 2024. [emphasis added].
******** The USPTO proposes to adjust fees paid throughout the trademark life cycle to collect sufficient aggregate revenue to recover recent increases in aggregate costs, due in part to higher-than-expected inflation and other requirements. Our proposal also increases aggregate revenue through fees designed to improve processing efficiencies and rebalance the fee structure to recover aggregate costs.
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Text Copyright John L. Welch 2023.
posted by John L. Welch @ 5/15/2023
5 comments
5 Comments:
And in exchange, do we get our 3-month initial response times back? No..? Okay...then that's a hard pass on the fee increases.
This is an outrage but no one cares. $100 more or $350 for a basic filing is unfair to small businesses (when combined with attorney fees), but makes sense for larger companies that can afford it. Maybe we need a system like in the patent office where "micro-entities" get a 75% discount or give a break to the first 3 application for a new entity or same person. Why can't the fees be raised only $25 instead of $100 or $50 increments?
How does inflation impact a Section 15? I expect most are combined with an 8 anyway.
Sad.
The $200 fee for entering free-form descriptions of goods and services is most concerning to me. Won't be long until AI fully replaces attorneys in the field
Among other issues, I don't favor different fees for SOU and AAU and "tiered" fees for extension requests. Such inconsistent fees may likely result in confusion for applicants (e.g., wondering why an AAU fee for one application is a different rate than the SOU fee for another application, or why the third and fourth extension request fees are different), and require counsel to waste time reviewing invoices and explaining the USPTO rationale in response to client questions. I'd rather see a simpler and more consistent fee schedule.
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