Summary of FY 2021 Final Trademark Fee Rule

Final Rule: Trademark Fee Adjustment 

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is setting and adjusting Trademark and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) fees for the first time in nearly three years through its Final Rul, effective January 2, 2021. This represents the end of a multi-year review and adjustment process. 

Why the USPTO is changing our Trademark and TTAB fees

Consistent with federal fee-setting standards, in December 2018, the USPTO began its biennial review of fees, costs, and revenues, and found that fee adjustments were necessary to address increasing costs and to provide necessary resources for Trademark operations, including implementing the USPTO 2018-2022 Strategic Plan.

In August 2019, the USPTO published a Federal Register noticeto announce plans to exercise its fee-setting authority to set or adjust Trademark fees. In September 2019, the Trademark Public Advisory Committee (TPAC) held a public hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, inviting members of the public to submit written and/or oral comments on fee adjustments. The TPAC considered the public comments from this hearing, which were made available on the USPTO website. On October 31, 2019, the TPAC provided a written report setting forth the comments, advice, and recommendations of the public and the committee regarding the proposed fees.

The overall strategy of the Final Rule is to balance a reasonable and affordable fee schedule with sufficient multi-year revenue to recover the aggregate costs of maintaining the USPTO’s trademark-related operations and accomplishing the USPTO’s trademark-related strategic goals.

The Final Rule enables the USPTO to continue to enhance the quality of trademark examination, achieve optimal examination times, invest in modernizing trademark information technology systems and infrastructure, and provide stability to USPTO operations, even in times of financial fluctuations.

The USPTO is implementing partial refunds for petitions to cancel in default judgments if the cancellation involves only a nonuse or abandonment claim, the defendant didn’t appear, and there were no filings other than the petition to cancel.  

Paper filing fee changes

Fees for certain Trademark and TTAB filings that are permitted to be submitted on paper will increase to help offset their higher processing costs. See the Final Rule for these changes.

Letter of protest procedures codified

In addition to adjusting fees, we’re codifying the procedures for letters of protest. These procedures include modifications to our current practice in the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure §§ 1715-1715.06 that encourage appropriate submissions to help us determine whether the submitted evidence supports a ground for refusal. These procedures will be effective January 2, 2021.

These requirements encourage the filing of timely, relevant, and well-supported letters of protest, which ultimately strengthen the integrity of the register.

Why we’re implementing a fee for certain requests to delete goods and services from a registration 

We’ll charge a fee if a request to delete goods, services, or classes from a registration is filed after a section 8 or section 71 declaration is filed but before it’s accepted. We won’t charge a fee if the request is filed before a section 8 or section 71 declaration is filed. If the section 8 or section 71 declaration doesn’t specify all of the goods, services, or classes listed in the registration, we won’t charge an additional fee—you’ll only pay the filing fee for the section 8 or section 71 declaration. In this situation, all of the goods, services, or classes not included in the declaration would be deleted from the registration.

Charging this fee for deletions made between the filing and acceptance of the section 8 or section 71 declaration will improve the integrity of the register by encouraging registrants to:

Determine sooner the goods, services, or classes in the registration for which their registered trademark is no longer in use.

Delete those goods, services, or classes from the registration before filing or within their section 8 or 71 declaration.

More quickly comply with statutory requirements regarding claims of use.

You can delete goods or services at any time by filing a section 7 request. The sooner we’re notified about nonuse of a trademark for goods or services, the sooner we can update the registration. This will help ensure everyone is accessing the most accurate and up-to-date information about registered trademarks when they search the trademark register. 

最终规则：商标费调整

美国专利商标局（USPTO）正在通过其最终规则（自2021年1月2日起生效）近三年来首次设定和调整商标和商标审判与上诉委员会（TTAB）的费用。多年的审查和调整过程。

2019年8月，美国专利商标局发布了联邦公报公告，宣布计划行使其收费设置权限来设置或调整商标费用。2019年9月，商标公共咨询委员会（TPAC）在弗吉尼亚州亚历山大市举行了公开听证会，邀请公众提出有关费用调整的书面和/或口头评论。TPAC审议了此次听证会的公众意见，这些意见已在USPTO网站上发布。TPAC于2019年10月31日提供了一份书面报告，阐明了公众和委员会对拟议收费的意见，建议和建议。

USPTO审议并分析了从TPAC收到的所有评论，建议和建议，然后在2020年6月19日发布了有关设置和调整商标费的法规建议公告。美国专利商标局收到并考虑了公众的意见。对意见的回应包含在《最终规则》中。

最近，USPTO还考虑了美国经济状况，该机构的运营需求，以及在确定何时实施最终规则时从公众那里收到的评论和建议。美国专利商标局基于所有这些考虑因素进行了调整，这与美国专利商标局为使利益相关者提供各种类型的救济而做出的许多其他努力一致，包括某些期限的延长和费用的减免。最终，USPTO的目标不仅是确保企业和企业家能够度过经济不景气，而且还可以确保他们能够在经济不景气时如虎添翼。

《最终规则》的总体策略是在合理且负担得起的费用表和充足的多年收入之间取得平衡，以收回维持USPTO商标相关业务和实现USPTO商标相关战略目标的总成本。

最终规则使美国专利商标局能够继续提高商标审查的质量，实现最佳审查时间，投资于商标信息技术系统和基础设施的现代化，即使在财务波动时期也能为美国专利商标局的运营提供稳定性。

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