http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8be04267-991e-423c-8977-4c70c9599f40
Oh March 19th, the USPTO's new fees on maintenance fees came into effect. This resulted in 50% increase in fees due at three intervals of the patents life: 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after patent issuance. The effect of this was a bunch of patent owners paying the renewal fees early.
While some of the patent prosecution fees are decreasing, most large entities can see their total patent prosecution fees increase. So why have these costs increased? The AIA, American Invest Act requires the USPTO to set fees "...only to recover the aggregate estimated costs to the Office for processing activities, services, and materials related to patents...including administrative costs." This gives the USPTO leeway to recover costs through fees. There is a broad definition of administrative costs and the organization is using it for its own advantage.
These are not only fee changes. A whole slew of fee changes have occured. For, micro-entities can receive much lower patent costs. For larger entities, they will see generally greater patent fees. For most large entities, the only main cost that has decreased is the Request for Prioritized Examination, from $4800 to $4000. The maintenance fees increases cover many of the decreases in other fees for a net increase of $340 for a large entity. Also, RCE fees are increasing to $1200 for the first RCE for a large entity and $1700 for each subsequent RCE. There is also a new fee of $2000 for a large entity for forwarding the appeal to the Board.
In general, I believe this makes sense. Increasing fees for larger institutions and decreasing costs for micro institutions. For large institutions they will not feel the price increase, especially relative to lawyer fees. On the other side, micro institutions will feel a large amount of change relative to their income. I wonder how the AIA will continue to change the patent landscape.
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