USPTO Bills Applicant $1,249,075 in Excess Claim Fees

Thanks to the Patently-O Blog for posting this Notice to File Missing Parts requesting payment of $1,249,075 for the 13,305 claims in U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 11/006,891 entitled Electrical Devices and Anti-Scarring Agents. "As would be expected," writes Dennis Crouch, "the patentee quickly submitted an amended specification that cut the disclosure to three independent claims and 96 dependent ones — thus reducing its PTO bill to only two grand."

The EEJD Blog points out that "The 'Pre-Exam Formalities Notice' indicates a $999,600 fee for 9,996 independent claims over 3, and a $249,475 fee for 9,979 total claims over 20. Apparently, either the PTO system is unable to process more than 9,999 claims, or the PTO stops charging for claims greater than 9,999," writes Brandon Rash.

With just 453 pages of written description, "there were 1441 pages worth of claims," writes Canadian Patent Attorney Sander Gelsing at the Now, Why Didn’t I Think of That Blog:

I do note that all the inventors are Canadian and that the first-listed inventor is Dr. William Hunter - President and CEO of Canadian based Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find an exact corresponding Canadian application
(it may not have been published yet). The closes one I did find was CA 2,388,844, with only 354 claims.

However, had they filed an application with 13,305 claims in Canada, the filing fee would have been a mere $200 for a small entity; and that’s Canadian dollars. Unlike the USPTO, our Patent Office does not charge an additional fee based on the number of claims.