On January 19, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) enacted significant fee increases for both patents and trademarks. These changes are intended to better align fees with the USPTO’s operational costs and support its mission of advancing American innovation.
While necessary for the agency’s long-term sustainability, the increases create new challenges for businesses and innovators. The key question is: how can your organization adapt your intellectual property strategy to maintain ROI and competitive edge in this new environment?
Key Patent Fee Increases to You Need Know
Patent Fee Increases
- Utility patent filing, examination, and search: +10%
- Excess claims:
- +25% for independent claims over three
- +100% for total claims over 20
- Request for Continued Examination (RCE):
- +10% for the first RCE
- +43% for subsequent RCEs
- Late-filed continuation applications:
- 6+ years from priority: $2,700 (large), $1,080 (small)
- 9+ years from priority: $4,000 (large), $1,600 (small)
- Information Disclosure Statement (IDS):
- 51–100 references: $200
- 101–200 references: $500
- 201+ references: $800
- Design patent fees: +50%
- Patent Term Extension (PTE): +112%; interim extensions up to +200%
How These Increases Will Affect Your Innovation and Patent Strategy
Strategic Innovation Shifts
As fees rise, businesses and inventors will need become more selective with their patent filings. Companies will need to prioritize innovations with the highest commercial potential. Smaller businesses and individual inventors may benefit from new fee discounts under the Unleashing American Innovators Act, which could help offset some of these costs.
Patent Prosecution Efficiency
Rising fees for excess claims, RCEs, and IDS filings necessitate a leaner, more efficient approach to patent prosecution. By focusing on truly unique claims, reducing unnecessary filings, and limiting excess claims, businesses can better manage costs. Proactively managing continuation filings and considering alternative IP protection strategies will be key to minimizing long-term expenses.
Shifts in the Tech Industry
The tech sector, which relies heavily on patents to secure competitive advantage, will need to rethink its IP strategies. Established tech firms and startups alike may focus on strategic patent portfolio management, keeping only the most crucial patents while using trade secrets or defensive publications for less critical innovations.
Responding to Rising Fees with a Smarter IP Strategy
The key to thriving in this new patent landscape is to optimize your intellectual property spend and ensure that every dollar invested in IP delivers measurable value. Here’s how you can maximize patent ROI, even in the face of rising fees.
Prioritize High-Value Patents with Portfolio Intelligence Reports (PIR)
The Portfolio Intelligence Report (PIR) from IP.com offers a deep dive into the strength and relevance of your patent portfolio. By utilizing advanced semantic analysis and citation mapping, PIRs help your IP team:
- Identify core technologies that justify continued investment
- Detect outdated or redundant patents that no longer serve your goals
- Uncover licensing opportunities and under-leveraged assets
Use these insights to implement a tiered strategy:
- Tier 1 – Core Patents: Essential to your market or technology leadership. Prioritize for enforcement and maintenance.
- Tier 2 – Strategic Patents: Support broader product families or future applications. Maintain selectively.
- Tier 3 – Non-Essential Patents: Outdated, redundant, or low-value. Prune, sell, or abandon.
This approach helps ensure your IP resources are focused on high-value innovations, while minimizing costs associated with low-impact patents.
Reduce Risk and Cost Through Defensive Publishing
Not every idea requires a patent—and that’s part of a strategic approach. With InnovationQ from IP.com, defensive publishing to the Prior Art Database allows you to protect incremental innovations without the high cost of prosecution. By publishing technical disclosures, you:
- Block others from patenting similar ideas
- Protect key spaces without expensive filings
- Preserve your strategic position while managing overhead
Defensive publishing offers a cost-effective alternative, especially for non-mission-critical inventions or innovations without commercial exclusivity.
Enhance Decision-Making with IQ Ideas+ and Technology Vitality Reports (TVRs)
Collaborate Early Between IP and R&D
IQ Ideas+ is designed to foster collaboration between your IP and R&D teams. With structured tools like “Solve a Problem” and “Improve a System,” IQ Ideas+ helps teams define technical challenges and explore inventive concepts that align with strategic business goals—ensuring a stronger, more targeted patent portfolio.
Evaluate Novelty with IQ Ideas+
Before committing to costly filings, IQ Ideas+ provides tools like “Evaluate a New Idea” to assess its novelty and potential overlap with prior art. This helps you pinpoint which innovations hold patent potential and commercial promise—reducing the risk of investing in inventions that are redundant or low-value.
Assess Market Relevance with TVRs
The Technology Vitality Report (TVR) from IP.com provides data-driven insights into an invention’s novelty and market relevance. The proprietary Novelty Score, backed by semantic analysis, helps you confidently assess whether an idea is truly distinct and commercially viable.
The Future of Patent ROI Management
As the USPTO’s updated fee structure takes effect, it’s clear that businesses must adopt a more disciplined, strategic approach to intellectual property. To maximize your ROI in this evolving environment, it’s essential to ensure that every patent filing is both commercially viable and strategically aligned.
By leveraging advanced IP analytics, structured ideation tools, and targeted portfolio management, businesses can:
- Focus resources on high-value, high-impact innovations.
- Reduce costs by eliminating low-priority assets.
- Make better decisions with data-driven insights on novelty and market relevance.
Now is the time to integrate smarter tools and deeper strategy into your patent process. With the right approach, you can not only manage costs but also strengthen your innovation pipeline and maintain a competitive edge.
Ready to Take Control of Your IP Strategy?
Schedule a brief meeting with an IP.com account executive today to explore how our tools and insights can help streamline your costs, optimize your patent portfolio, and drive greater ROI from your innovation investments. Let’s rethink what your IP can do.