On August 3, 2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office or USPTO) issued a Final Rule to set or increase certain patent fees as authorized by the AIA, as amended by the SUCCESS Act, which is the first fee increase in almost three years. This Final Rule is effective on October 2, 2020.

Most of the patent official fees have been fine-tuned within 10%, while a small part of the fees have been adjusted significantly. For example, the utility issue fee has been increased to 20%, the patent maintenance fee due at 3.5 years has been increased to 25%, and the surcharge for late payment of maintenance fee has been increased to 213%, etc.

Besides, the USPTO decieded to add the surcharge for non-docx format document filling during this fee adjustment, and this fee change will not take effect until January 1, 2022.

In additions, the USPTO discontinued few patent fees such as the fee for each claim in excess of 20 and etc.

The new patent fee rule will be applied for any payment paid on and after October 2, 2020. Considering the specific situation, Applicants can try to pay relevant fees before October 2, 2020 to save costs.

The partially adjusted fee standards are as follows (the following fees are subject to the large entity fee standards):

News source: USPTO

https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/performance-and-planning/summary-fy-2020-final-patent-fee-rule