How to pay patent renewal fees [Real Research]

Last updated : Aug 5, 2022

How do I pay a patent fee online?

Currently, you may pay patent maintenance fees, most patent and trademark fees, and fees for ordering copies of documents electronically via uspto.gov. Online payment methods available on uspto.gov include credit or debit card, deposit account, or electronic funds transfer (EFT).

Is payment of renewal fees for patents required?

As per Section 53, Rule 80 of the Indian Patents Act, in order to keep the patent in force, prescribed renewal fee is required to be paid in respect of each year (3rd year onwards) in advance (i.e before the expiration of the succeeding year) to the Indian Patent Office.

How do I pay a patent fee on Uspto?

Pay online (preferred method) We accept credit cards, debit cards that do not require a PIN, deposit accounts, or EFT when paying online. Guest users can only pay with a credit or debit card, but signed in USPTO.gov account users can pay with any payment method stored in Financial Manager.

How often are patent renewal fees due?

Once a US patent is issued, you are obliged to pay a recurring renewal fee to maintain the patent. Renewal fees in the US are paid in intervals of 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years, starting from 3.5 years after the issue date of the patent.

Can a patent be renewed after 20 years?

No, you cannot renew a patent for an additional 20-year term. Utility patents have a 20-year term and design patents have a 15-year term. Patents rights are discharged discharged into the public domain when they expire. Under some circumstances, the patent term may be extended.

How do you pay for a patent?

Please use one of the following four options: Pay online (preferred method) - Pay immediately in the Patent Maintenance Fees Storefront with a credit or debit card, USPTO deposit account, or EFT. Do not submit the payment via EFS-Web. Pay by wire - See the instructions for sending a wire payment to the USPTO.

Can you renew a patent after it has expired?

Can You Renew Your Patent? Unfortunately, once a patent expires it cannot be renewed. There are typically no exceptions to this rule. However, as explained above, if your patent expired because of a failure to pay maintenance fees, you would be able to renew (reinstate) your patent until its original term expires.

How do I restore a lapsed patent?

1. Under Section 60 of the Patents Act 1970, an application for restoration of lapsed patent should be made by patentee or his legal representative.
2. Prescribed fee on Form 15.
3. Proof to support that failure of the renewal/ maintenance was unintentional.

How much is patent maintenance fee?

The current USPTO Fee Schedule indicates that the fees due at each maintenance interval are as follows: 3-3.5 years: $1,600 for large entities and $800/$400 for small/micro entities. 3.5-4 years: the amount above plus another $160 for large entities or $80/$40 for small/micro entities.

What happens when a patent expires?

After the patent expires, anyone may make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention without permission of the patent owner, provided that subject matter is not covered by an unexpired patent. Certain pharmaceutical patents may be extended as provided by law.

What happens if patent fees are not paid?

The fact is that to maintain the patent, the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) requires patent holders to pay patent maintenance fees at intervals of 42, 90, and 138 months. Failure to pay these fees results in the expiration of the patent.

How do I find out if a patent maintenance fee has been paid?

You can use the USPTO's Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system to determine if maintenance fees have been paid. Enter the patent number on the first screen (you will need to use the pull-down menu to change "Application Number" to "Patent Number", or enter the application number, if you know it).

Is there a yearly fee for a patent?

In general, you can expect the following costs to file a patent: USPTO fee (government): $50 to $700. Maintenance fee (renewal): $400 to $7,400 per year. Patent lawyer (search and application): $1,000 to $10,000.

What happens if you do not pay an annual patent protection fee in a given country?

If the annual fee is not paid, the patent application shall be deemed withdrawn or the patent shall be considered as lapsed from the day following the expiration of the period within which the annual fee was due.

How do I renew my design patent?

Unfortunately, one a design patent expires, it cannot be renewed. This is so because unlike utility patents which can expire due to nonpayment of maintenance fees, design patents do not have maintenance, so they usually expire due to the expiration of the patent term.

How many times can I renew a patent?

Patents cannot go on forever, not in the US or anywhere else. As long as you understand that patents will expire, then “patent renewal” may be considered a layman's term for the more technical term of patent maintenance. Patents cannot be renewed once their terms expire.

Whats the longest a patent can last?

A U.S. utility patent, explained above, is generally granted for 20 years from the date the patent application is filed; however, periodic fees are required to maintain the enforceability of the patent.

Can I buy an expired patent?

You can buy an expired patent by performing a patent search through the USPTO website (more on this later) and checking to see if the patent has expired. Once you find a patent that has expired and you want to buy, you can go ahead and contact the patent owner to negotiate purchasing the patent.

Why are patents so expensive?

Because patents are valuable to have and expensive to infringe there will always be those who seek to get around your rights. The job of the patent attorney is to make sure that doesn't happen to the greatest extent possible. That requires a lot of time and energy, which translates into money.

Why do you have to pay for a patent?

The real cost comes in the preparation of the application. A quality patent requires a patent lawyer to draft a thorough description of the invention. Utility patents typically cost several thousand dollars. However, the more complex the invention, the more expensive it will be to have a lawyer draft the application.

Check these related keywords for more interesting articles :
What trademark class is candles
How to remove fake copyright claim
Jointly owned intellectual property clause
Can i trademark a term
What is a class 1 trademark
What are trademark definition
Trademark registration ukraine
How to read a wipo patent
Intellectual property infringement remedies
Trademark registry karachi
Can you copyright numbers
How much does it cost to trademark a brand in canada
How to copyright architectural drawings
Intellectual property assets management inc
How to get amazon brand gating

Write a comment

Thanks for this great article

Thanks for your comment Charley Yousef, have a nice day.
- Paulette Lieblong, Staff Member

hello and welcome to another edition of inventors quick tips today we are discussing the topic of maintenance fees and what you need to know to keep your patent in force so first what are maintenance fees these are periodic fees that must be paid to the patent office in order to keep a patent in force the fees are broken into three parts one fee at 3.5 years another fee at 7.5 years and another fee at 11.5 years the fees are graduated such that the first fee is the lowest increasing up to the third fee which is the most expensive so the longer you want to keep the patent in force the more it costs if you do not pay the fee the patent will become abandoned and will no longer be in force now it may be that let's say after some period of time you realize you are not going to do anything with this patent then you don't need to pay the fee in some cases especially by the 11.5 year payment the patent owner's business model has changed and they may opt to skip that payment allowing the patent to become abandoned so if you have an issued patent you may be wondering when your maintenance fees are due you can check your patent maintenance fee schedule at this link which i will also place in the description here is the page let's check out a sample patent to see what it looks like in these fields you put the patent number and the corresponding application number i'll just put a random patent here and for this patent we can see that no maintenance fees are due at this time the 3.5 year maintenance fee was already paid and the 7.5 year window opens march 15th of 2023 so if i were responsible for this patent i would put the due dates of the upcoming maintenance fees in my calendar so i would get reminded about when they are due so i don't miss them i'll expand this section so you can see it and you can now see that the first maintenance fee at 3.5 years after the patent issued was paid for each fee you have a six-month window to pay this column shows the first day that each window is open after the six-month window you can still pay but you'll also need to pay an additional late fee finally after this date if you haven't paid the fee your patent goes abandoned in some cases you may be able to revive the patent by paying the maintenance fee plus additional surcharges but if you are still interested in keeping your patent in force try not to let this happen again use your calendar to remind you of the maintenance fee due dates this column tells you if the fees were paid or not so you might be wondering how much does it cost the fee amounts change periodically the patent office has a link to get the latest fee schedule i will put this link in the description here is the page as of the time this video is being made for most independent inventors the small entity fee will be used there is also a micro entity fee that you may qualify for if you meet certain criteria as you can see for the small entity the first fee at 3.5 years is currently 800 then at 7.5 years it is 1800 and the last fee at 11.5 years is 3700. which is a good chunk of money so you can now appreciate that if after 11 and a half years you are not using the patent or conducting business in the field of the patent it may be appropriate to let it expire and not pay the thirty seven hundred dollars of course if you are using it or it is providing strategic value to your business then you'll want to make sure that the fee gets paid on time to keep your patent in force the information for this video comes from the manual of patent examination procedure often referred to as the mpep or mpep it is basically a guidebook on how to interpret the patent rules laws and results of important court decisions it is relied upon by both patent examiners and patent professionals it is available to the public at the link shown here and i will also put this link in the video description in particular this section of the mpep 2500 discusses this topic in further detail and this is a fairly complex topic with many corner cases rules and exceptions which were not covered here so if you want to learn more about this topic you can check out this section so i hope you found this to be interesting and helpful if so please like share and subscribe and thanks for watching bye

Thanks maxigabbanaR your participation is very much appreciated
- Paulette Lieblong

About the author

Paulette Lieblong

I've studied police science at James Madison University in Harrisonburg and I am an expert in spintronics. I usually feel infuriated. My previous job was occupational analyst I held this position for 16 years, I love talking about photography and swimming. Huge fan of Joanna Gaines I practice waterskiing and collect football cards.