35 U.S.C. § 41 — Patent fees; patent and trademark search systems

(a) General Fees. The Director must charge these fees: (1) Filing and basic national fees — filing an original patent application (not a design, plant, or provisional one) costs $330; a design patent application costs $220; a plant patent application costs $220; a provisional application costs $220; a reissue application costs $330; and the basic fee for an international application entering the U.S. national stage costs $330. On top of that, if an application's specification and drawings run over 100 pages (not counting electronic sequence or program listings), there's an extra $270 for each additional 50 pages or part of 50 pages. (2) Excess claims fees — in addition to the fees above: $220 for each independent claim beyond 3; $52 for each claim, dependent or independent, beyond 20; and $390 extra if the application has a "multiple dependent claim" (a claim that refers back to more than one earlier claim). For this fee, a multiple dependent claim counts as several separate dependent claims, one for each claim it refers to. The Director can refund part of this fee for a claim that's canceled before the application is examined, and can fix payment mistakes by regulation. (3) Examination fees — examining an original patent application (not design, plant, provisional, or international) costs $220; a design application costs $140; a plant application costs $170; the national stage of an international application costs $220; and a reissue application costs $650. The same rules that govern paying the basic filing fee also govern paying these examination fees. (4) Issue fees — issuing an original patent (not design or plant) costs $1,510; a design patent costs $860; a plant patent costs $1,190; and a reissued patent costs $1,510. (5) Disclaimer fee — filing a disclaimer costs $140. (6) Appeal fees — appealing an examiner's decision to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board costs $540; filing a brief supporting that appeal costs another $540; and asking for an oral hearing costs $1,080 more. (7) Revival fees — filing a petition to revive an abandoned application, pay a late patent-issue fee, respond late in a reexamination, pay a maintenance fee late, submit a late priority claim, or extend the 12-month filing window costs $1,700. The Director may refund part of this fee in unusual circumstances. (8) Extension fees — asking for a one-month extension of time costs $130 for a first request, $360 for a second, and $620 for a third or later request. (b) Maintenance Fees. (1) For patents from applications filed on or after December 12, 1980, the owner must pay to keep the patent in force: $980 at three and a half years after the patent is granted; $2,480 at seven and a half years; and $4,110 at eleven and a half years. (2) If a maintenance fee isn't paid by its due date, there's a six-month grace period to pay it late. If it still isn't paid by the end of that grace period, the patent expires. The Director can require a surcharge to accept a late payment during that grace period. (3) Design and plant patents never have a maintenance fee. (c) Delays in Paying Maintenance Fees. (1) Even after the six-month grace period ends, the Director can still accept a late maintenance fee if the patent owner shows the delay was unintentional, and may require the revival fee from (a)(7) as a condition. If accepted, the patent is treated as if it never expired. (2) But this doesn't take away rights from anyone who, during the gap between the grace period ending and the late payment being accepted, already made, bought, offered to sell, used, or imported the patented item — or made real preparations to. Those people (and their business successors) can keep doing what they were already doing. A court deciding a dispute over this can set fair terms to protect investments or business started during that gap, including letting someone keep using a patented process. (d) Patent Search and Other Fees. (1) The Director charges a search fee for every application except provisional ones, set to roughly cover the Patent Office's average cost of searching: $540 for an original patent application (not design, plant, provisional, or international); $100 for a design application; $330 for a plant application; $540 for the national stage of an international application; and $540 for a reissue application. The same payment-timing rules that apply to filing fees apply to these. The Director can refund part of this fee if an applicant formally abandons the application before it's examined. (2) For other patent-related services not otherwise listed, the Director sets fees to cover the Office's average cost — except three fees are fixed by this law: $40 per property to record a document affecting title, $0.25 per page for photocopies, and $3 for a black-and-white copy of a patent. Libraries that keep patent copies for the public get a full yearly set of printed patents for $50. (e) Waiving Fees. The Director can waive any patent fee for an occasional or one-time request from a government department, agency, or official. The Director can also give someone named in a section 132 notice free copies of the patents mentioned in that notice. (f) Adjusting Fees. Starting October 1, 1992, and every year after that, the Director can adjust the fees in (a) and (b) to keep up with changes in the Consumer Price Index over the past year. Changes smaller than 1% can be ignored. (g) Repealed. (h) Fees for Small Entities. (1) Fees under (a), (b), and (d)(1) are cut by 60% for qualifying small businesses, independent inventors, and nonprofit organizations, as the Director defines them by regulation. (2) But any surcharge or fee under (c) or (d) charged to these smaller filers can't be higher than what anyone else pays in the same situation. (3) The basic filing fee in (a)(1)(A) is cut by an extra 80% for these smaller filers if they file electronically. (i) Electronic Patent and Trademark Data. (1) The Director must keep public collections — on paper, microform, or electronically — of U.S. patents, foreign patent documents, and U.S. trademark registrations, organized so people can search and retrieve them. The Director cannot charge a fee just for using these collections or the public search rooms and libraries. (2) The Director must fully roll out the Patent Office's automated search systems for public use, and must make sure the public can fully access and receive patent and trademark information through tools like electronic bulletin boards and remote database access. (3) The Director can set reasonable fees for public access to the automated search systems, but must offer some free access for education and training. The Director can waive an individual's fee if that person shows need or hardship and the waiver serves the public interest. (4) The Director must report to Congress every year on these automated search systems and how the public is using them, publish that report in the Federal Register, and let interested people submit comments on it. (j) Penalty for False Claims. Beyond any other legal penalty, someone who falsely claims they qualify for a small-entity fee reduction must pay a fine — set by the Director, but at least three times the amount they underpaid — unless they can show the claim was made in good faith. This applies whether the false claim is caught before or after the patent is granted.