USPTO Issues Draft Fee Schedules

The draft Patent Fee Schedule is available here and will take effect when the President signs H.R. 4818 as announced by the USPTO here.

The draft Trademark Fee Schedule is available here and will not take effect until (1) the President signs H.R. 4818 into law AND (2) the USPTO takes the necessary administrative measures to give effect to the new fees.

With regard to electronic patent filing, the USPTO has also announced that the new ePAVE software (version 5.2) with the updated fee structure and amounts will not be available to the eFiling community for up to 10 business days after this Bill is signed. In the interim, electronic filers should submit their filings using the fee structure inherent to ePAVE (version 5.1e). Fees will NOT be automatically charged to eFilers credit cards or Deposit accounts after the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005 (H.R. 4818) is enacted prior to the release of ePAVE 5.2.

The USPTO is therefore reccomending that "all e-filing submissions paid by deposit account during this time period authorize the Commissioner to charge any additional fees required under 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.16 and 1.17. If the fees chosen by the applicant using ePAVE (version 5.1e) are less than fees associated with the submission with the new fee structure and the applicant did NOT check the box to authorize payment of any additional fees, a notice will be sent to eFilers during this interim period to collect the appropriate fees associated with the eFiling. There will be NO penalty associated with this fee collection as it relates to patent applications filed with the EFS software until the appropriate version of ePAVE (version 5.2), as long as the submission included sufficient funds to pay the basic filing fee and the basic filing fee was chosen. The basic filing fee after revision will be less than the same fee due for applications filed on or after October 1, 2004 and prior to enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005 (H.R. 4818)."