The Trademark Office has announced that its filing fees for certain matters will increase for the first time in three years on January 2, 2021. File your new applications and any oppositions or cancellations before January to avoid the price increase.
In setting the new fees, the Trademark Office considered the state of the US economy, the operational needs of the office and the comments and advice received during public comment period. to determine when to increase the fees. The overall strategy is to balance a reasonable and affordable fee schedule with multi-year revenue to recover the aggregate costs of maintaining the office’s trademark operations and strategic goals.
Here are examples of the fee increases going to effect for various matters (all filed electronically, filing fees are more to file on paper due to the increased operational costs):
Applications and application-related fees
Filing to be made | Current Fee per class | New Fee per class |
Application with custom good/service ID | $275 | $350 |
Application with standard ID | $225 | $250 |
Post registration fees
Filing to be made | Current Fee per class | New Fee per class |
Section 8 filings after five years of use | $125 | $225 |
New fee if goods/services deleted after filing Sec. 8 | -0- | $250 |
Petitions and letters of protest
Filing to be made | Current Fee per class | New Fee per class |
Petition to the Director | $100 | $250 |
Petition to revive an abandoned application | $100 | $150 |
New fee for letter of protest | -0- | $50* |
*The Trademark Office is codifying letter of protest procedures to encourage appropriate submissions to help the office determine whether the submitted evidence supports a ground for refusal of registration. The procedures require: an itemize evidence index, no more than 10 items of evidence or 75 total pages, absent special circumstances
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board fees
Filing to be made | Current Fee per class | New Fee per class |
Petition to cancel | $400 | $600* |
Notice of opposition | $400 | $600 |
Initial 30-day extension request for opposition | -0- | -0- |
Initial 90-day extension request for opposition or second 60-day extension for opposition | $100 | $200 |
Final 60-day extension request for opposition | $200 | $400 |
Ex parte appeal | $200 | $225 |
First request for extension of time to file an appeal brief | -0- | -0- |
New fee for second and subsequent requests for an extension of time to file an appeal brief | -0- | $100 |
New fee for appeal briefs in an ex parte appeal | -0- | $200 |
New fee for request for oral hearings | -0- | $500 |
*$200 refund will be available for petition to cancel in default judgments if the cancellation involves only a nonuse or abandonment claim, the defendant did not appear and there were no filings other than the petition to cancel.
See here for the full final rule implementing the fee changes.