As we ring in the new year, it’s the perfect time to get your trademarks in shape for 2025. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is raising costs and rolling out major changes that will change how businesses file and maintain their trademarks. Whether you’re launching a new product or protecting your existing brand’s legacy by maintaining your active trademarks, these updates to fees and processes are bound to impact your intellectual property strategy. Don’t let these updates catch you off guard—now’s the time to prepare!
So, mark your calendars! All these changes will be official on January 18, 2025. In the meantime, it is a special time for trademark filings, as the new streamlined application process has been launched, but at the old application rates. This provides a unique opportunity to save time and money. With that in mind, let’s go back a few months to understand why the USPTO is shaking things up.
Background
On March 26, 2024, the USPTO issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to set and adjust certain trademark fees during fiscal year 2025 to provide sufficient aggregate revenue to recover prospective aggregate costs of trademark operations and allow the USPTO to achieve strategic goals. See 89 Fed. Reg. 20897 (March 26, 2024). These strategic goals include streamlining processes, implementing more user-friendly tools, increasing the use of plain language, and enabling ease, efficiency, and confidence in processes and outcomes. On November 18, 2024, the USPTO published a final rule setting and adjusting certain trademark fees during fiscal year 2025 (89 Fed. Reg. 91068 (Nov. 18, 2024). The final rule very closely follows the USPTO’s March 26, 2024, notice of proposed rulemaking.
Fee Changes
The fee distinction between Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) Plus and TEAS Standard will be gone. Instead, there will be one base application fee for applications under Trademark Act Sections 1 and 44 ($350 per class).
The USPTO is also introducing additional surcharge fees for applications that are incomplete or contain a custom identification of goods or services. These fees aim to incentivize applicants to file more complete applications, which will hopefully improve examination turnaround times. The surcharge fee for filing insufficient information will cost $100 per class. Using the free-form text box in an application or Office Action instead of the Trademark ID Manual to identify goods and services will cost an extra $200 per class. Statement of Use Fees (SOU) for Section 1(b) “intent-to-use” applications – which haven’t been adjusted since 2002 – are changing from $100 to $150 per class.
The USPTO is also increasing the fees for post-registration maintenance filings. For example, Section 8 declarations will increase from $225 to $325 per class. Section 15 declarations will increase from $200 to $250 per class. For those looking to revive abandoned marks, the cost to file a petition to revive an application is increasing from $150 to $250.
A full table of fee changes is available here on the USPTO’s website.
Berenzweig Leonard LLP will continue to monitor and provide updates on the USPTO’s new processes for filing and maintaining trademarks. If you have any questions about how to navigate the new filing system or how the updated fee schedule could impact your business, please contact us to speak with our Intellectual Property Team.
Isabel Wadsworth is a Senior Law Clerk at Berenzweig Leonard. You can reach her at iwadsworth@berenzweiglaw.com or (703) 574-9143.
Nick Martinez is an Associate Attorney at Berenzweig Leonard. You can reach him at nmartinez@berenzweiglaw.com or (703) 760-0439