Fees for certain trademark filings at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will increase on January 18, 2025. Trademark owners may want to file new applications and maintain and renew current registrations before the new rates come into effect.
Although the basic application fee of $350 (per class) for a US trademark owner will not change, the USPTO has added several new fees that may also apply. First, an additional fee of $200 will be required if the wording of the identification of goods and services does not match the terms found in the office’s Trademark ID Manual. In many, if not most, cases the wording identifying an applicant’s goods and services will not be found in the manual, and so the likely filing will be $550 per class. Second, if the wording identifying goods or services in a given class is longer than 1,000 characters, a surcharge of $200 will be added, plus another $200 for each additional 1,000 characters. If the application is missing certain information, such as a translation of the mark, an additional fee of $100 will be assessed. Careful and succinct drafting of the application may avoid these additional fees.
For foreign owners who base their US trademark applications on their foreign rights under the Paris Convention, the same fees as stated above for a US application will apply. However, for a foreign applicant relying on the Madrid Protocol, the application filing fee will increase from $500 to $600, but the additional fees discussed above will not apply. This suggests that foreign owners may want to proceed initially via the Madrid Protocol rather than under the Paris Convention.
Other increases include the cost of filing the mandatory declaration of use for a registration ($225 to $325 per class) and the cost of renewing a registration ($525 to $650 per class). The fee for a petition to the director will increase from $250 to $400, and a letter of protest will increase from $50 to $150.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like to discuss how this final rule affects your IP strategy.
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