How Much Does a Patent Cost in the US? Fees, Professional Costs, and Variables

A US utility patent costs two separate things: fees paid to the USPTO and fees paid to a patent attorney or agent. On the USPTO fee schedule, last revised August 14, 2026, filing, search and examination cost $2,000 undiscounted, $730 for a small entity filing electronically and $400 for a micro entity. Fees through the 11.5-year maintenance payment total $17,760, $7,034 and $3,552. Attorney fees come on top: the USPTO told Congress in December 2024 that they and other non-USPTO expenses are typically in excess of $10,000.

What the USPTO charges to file a utility application

An original utility application carries a basic filing fee, a search fee and an examination fee. The undiscounted amounts are $350, $770 and $880, $2,000 in total. A small entity pays $800 on the standard rows, or $730 when it files electronically in Patent Center under fee code 4011, which sets its basic fee at $70. A micro entity pays $400. All amounts in this article come from the USPTO fee schedule revised August 14, 2026, unless another source is named.

Surcharges sit on top of that base. Paper filing adds a non-electronic filing fee of $400, or $200 for small and micro entities, and the schedule states that filing through Patent Center is the only way to avoid it. A filing whose text fails the DOCX requirements of the USPTO draws a non-DOCX surcharge of $430 at the full rate under 37 CFR 1.16(u), for applications filed on or after January 17, 2024. Provisional applications and design and plant applications escape both.

Fees that arrive after allowance

Once the USPTO allows an application, the issue fee comes due at $1,290 on the schedule of August 2026. The publication fee is $0.

Maintenance fees follow, and they are the largest government cost if a utility patent is kept in force to 11.5 years. Each is due once, at 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 years after the grant date. The USPTO maintenance page says payment may be made without surcharge in the windows of 3 to 3.5, 7 to 7.5 and 11 to 11.5 years after issue, and that early payment isn’t accepted.

Each window is followed by a six-month grace period, with a surcharge of $540 at the full rate, per the schedule revised in 2026. Under 35 U.S.C. 41(b), a patent expires at the end of the grace period if the fee remains unpaid. Paid online, the amount is calculated from the entity status on file for the patent.

Design and plant patents carry no maintenance fees, because 35 U.S.C. 41 bars the USPTO from setting any for them.

Government fees across the life of one patent

These totals sum the USPTO schedule rows from filing through the 11.5-year payment, under these assumptions: electronic filing in DOCX; at most 20 claims and three independent claims; at most 100 sheets; no continued examination or extensions; every maintenance fee paid on time. Small entity amounts use the 4011 basic fee.

Across the USPTO schedule rows, maintenance accounts for $14,470 of the undiscounted $17,760, $5,788 of the small entity $7,034 and $2,894 of the micro entity $3,552. The 11.5-year payment alone is $8,280, nearly half of the undiscounted total, and a patent that lapses at the 3.5-year or 7.5-year mark owes none of the later payments.

On the USPTO schedule revised in August 2026, most reduced rates are 40 percent (small entity) and 20 percent (micro entity) of the full rate, as in the tables here. Paper filing, information disclosure size fees and recording of assignments are among the flat-price exceptions.

Provisional applications

The provisional filing fee, per the USPTO schedule of August 2026, is $325 at the full rate, $130 at the small rate and $65 at the micro rate. No search or examination fee applies, since the USPTO does not examine provisional applications on their merits. Pendency lasts 12 months from the filing date, and the USPTO states that the period cannot be extended.

For a provisional to result in a patent, a nonprovisional application must claim its benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) within 12 months, or the provisional must be converted by petition. A nonprovisional filed within 14 months can have the benefit restored by petition. The nonprovisional is charged separately. Under the same 2026 revision, a provisional also draws a size fee of $450 at the full rate for each additional 50 sheets beyond 100.

Fees that raise the total

Each fee below applies only if the event happens.

Continued examination is governed by 37 CFR 1.114, and extensions of time run from one to five additional months of response time. A response filed in the fifth month costs $3,395 undiscounted as of 2026, more than the first continued examination request.

Prioritized examination under 37 CFR 1.102(e) adds the $4,515 request fee and a $150 processing fee. Such an application may not contain more than four independent claims, more than 30 total claims or any multiple dependent claim, and the USPTO raised its yearly cap on accepted requests from 15,000 to 20,000 effective July 8, 2025.

Information disclosure statements draw a size fee once an applicant has cited more than 50 items; the USPTO’s 2026 schedule charges $200 above 50, $500 above 100 and $800 above 200, the same for every entity status, with the last two reduced by amounts already paid.

A continuing application filed more than six years after the earliest benefit date owes $2,700 at the full rate, and one filed after nine years owes $4,000. An appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board costs $905 for the notice of appeal and $2,535 to forward the appeal to the Board, $3,440 in all, a total the Federal Register preamble of the 2025 fee rule also states. Filing the appeal brief carries no fee.

Late payments

Amounts in this section are full-rate figures from the USPTO schedule, and reduced rates follow the ratios given earlier. A petition for delayed payment of a maintenance fee costs $2,260 when the delay is one year or less and $3,000 when it is longer, and a petition to revive an abandoned application carries the same amounts. A late filing fee draws a $170 surcharge, as does a late inventor’s oath or declaration.

Design and plant patents

For a design application that proceeds to issuance, the USPTO’s 2025 final rule gives totals of $2,600 at the full rate, with $1,040 and $520 at the reduced rates. By the schedule rows, a plant patent adds up to $2,355 at the full rate, with $942 and $471 at the reduced rates. Neither patent type has a maintenance fee.

Small entity and micro entity status

Small entities receive a 60 percent reduction under 35 U.S.C. 41(h), and micro entities receive 80 percent. The USPTO’s fee-setting page states that before the Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022 the reductions were 50 percent and 75 percent. Electronic filing of a basic utility application earns a small entity a further statutory reduction that brings the basic fee to $70.

Under 37 CFR 1.27, small status belongs to a person, a small business concern or a nonprofit organization. A person is an inventor or other individual who has not transferred or licensed rights in the invention and is under no obligation to do so, except to parties that would themselves qualify. A small business concern meets the size standards of 13 CFR 121.802, which set a ceiling of 500 employees including affiliates. Universities and organizations described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code count as nonprofits.

Micro status is narrower. Under 35 U.S.C. 123, the applicant must qualify as a small entity, must not have been named as inventor on more than four previously filed applications, and must not have had gross income above three times the median household income in the preceding calendar year. As of September 15, 2026, the USPTO states the maximum qualifying gross income as $262,380. A second route exists for applicants employed by, or assigning rights to, an institution of higher education. Provisional and foreign applications do not count toward the four-application limit under 37 CFR 1.29(a)(2).

New determinations are needed when the issue fee and each maintenance fee fall due, and 37 CFR 1.29(e) requires micro status to be established separately in each continuing application and each reissue. The USPTO adds that applicants and patentees must re-evaluate it each time a fee is paid.

Intent decides the consequences of a wrong claim. An error made in good faith is excused on a separate itemized submission and a deficiency payment, under 37 CFR 1.28(c) for small entities and 37 CFR 1.29(k) for micro entities. A fraudulent attempt to establish status is treated as fraud practiced on the Office under 37 CFR 1.27(h), and 35 U.S.C. 41(j) and 123(f) allow a fine of not less than three times the amount left unpaid, unless the entity shows good faith.

Attorney and agent fees

Patent practitioners set their own prices, and the USPTO publishes no price list for them. Its closest figure appears in the fee study summary report to Congress, dated December 2024, which sets about $2,000 of filing-stage government fees beside outside costs that it puts above $10,000. The report gives that figure as a rough typical amount, with no breakdown by technology or entity size.

Per-step figures come from the American Intellectual Property Law Association. The USPTO’s 2025 fee rule cites AIPLA’s 2023 Report of the Economic Survey for a mean cost, excluding USPTO fees, of $5,269 for an appeal without oral argument. Responding to an Office action by amendment or argument runs from $2,364 to $3,972 depending on the technology and the complexity of the invention, and an information disclosure statement citing fewer than 50 references costs $473. According to the Federal Register, an appeal without oral argument therefore costs $8,709 once the $3,440 in USPTO fees is included.

AIPLA’s free excerpt of the same report gives hourly rates for 2022: a median average of $450 for private firm attorneys, $500 for equity partners and $400 for solo practitioners and partner-track attorneys. It reports rates and hours, not the price of an application. AIPLA sells the full report with per-service charges to non-members for $495, and no open source consulted gives a median total for drafting and filing a utility application.

What a given practitioner charges is governed by 37 CFR 11.105, which bars an unreasonable fee. The rule lists the factors for judging reasonableness: the time and labor required and the skill needed; the fee customarily charged in the locality for similar services; the amount involved and the results obtained; the experience and ability of the practitioners; and whether the fee is fixed or contingent.

Scope and fee basis are to be communicated to the client, preferably in writing, and no later than a reasonable time after the representation begins. A fee divided between practitioners outside one firm requires the client’s agreement, confirmed in writing.

Lower-cost routes to professional help

An individual applicant may file and prosecute the application without a practitioner under 37 CFR 1.31, quoted in MPEP 401. A juristic entity, such as a company that is the applicant, must be represented by a patent practitioner. The USPTO’s Pro Se Assistance Program page says the office always recommends a registered patent attorney or agent, and it acknowledges that the cost of legal assistance is prohibitive for many independent inventors and small businesses. Since the office cannot recommend a particular practitioner, its register, maintained by the Office of Enrollment and Discipline, serves to confirm that a named person is registered.

Free help is available through the Patent Pro Bono Program, a nationwide network of independently operated regional programs that match volunteer patent attorneys and agents with financially under-resourced inventors and small businesses. Its common income test is gross household income below three times the federal poverty level guidelines, with requirements varying by region. The Law School Clinic Certification Program lists over 70 participating clinics, where students practice before the USPTO under a faculty supervisor, and each school accepts clients at its own discretion.

Time and labor required is the first of the reasonableness factors in 37 CFR 11.105(a). Precursal is an AI platform for ideas and patents. Its home page says it helps users explore ideas, uncover white space, research prior art, document human conception and prepare stronger materials for patent counsel, and under the heading “Walk into counsel better prepared” it names an inventor notebook among the items a user can bring. The same page says Precursal does not determine or guarantee novelty, patentability, validity or enforceability.

This article describes fee rules and is not legal advice; a registered patent attorney or agent can say how the schedule applies to a specific application.

Who sets the fees and when they change

Section 10 of the America Invents Act authorizes the USPTO Director to set or adjust patent fees by rule, and fees may be set only to recover the aggregate estimated cost of patent operations. Current amounts come from a final rule published on November 20, 2024 at 89 FR 91898, effective January 19, 2025, which applies the 60 and 80 percent discounts set by the Unleashing American Innovators Act in December 2022. A correction at 90 FR 3036 made no substantive change. According to the USPTO’s fee-setting page, the agency reviews fee levels at least every two years.

The revision dated August 14, 2026 concerns petitions. A final rule at 91 FR 37826, published June 24, 2026, moved the point at which additional information is required for unintentional delay from two years to one year, for petitions filed after August 13, 2026.

Authority to set new fees is itself time-limited. Public Law 119-103, approved September 2, 2026, amended section 10(i)(2) of the America Invents Act so that the Director’s authority is currently set to end on December 11, 2026. Section 2015 of that law changes only the end date, and fees established by the 2025 final rule remain in effect until adjusted by a future rulemaking.