As part of the 2025 fee rule, we now have additional fees for applications filed under Sections 1 and 44 that are incomplete or contain custom identifications of goods or services.
You must pay these fees if you don’t satisfy the base application requirements. This is intended to encourage you to submit more complete applications, which improves examination efficiency and reduces pendency.
You must provide certain information to meet the requirements of a base application. For example, your application must include:
The applicant’s domicile address
The applicant’s legal entity
A declaration that the facts in the application are true, dated and signed by a person properly authorized to sign on behalf of the trademark owner
Other required information depends on the trademark itself. For example, if your trademark includes:
Non-English wording, you must provide an English translation
An individual’s name or likeness, you must provide their written consent
Color, you must provide a description of where color appears in the mark and claim the colors
For the list of base application requirements, see 37 CFR 2.22(a)(1)-(19).
If you don’t include the required information for a base application, you must pay an additional fee of $100 per class of goods or services. The fee is assessed for all active classes in an application, even if classes are later deleted or added. In most cases, you’ll pay this fee when you file your application. In others, a USPTO examining attorney may determine you owe the fee during the examination process.
| If you don’t include | And your application has | Then you’ll pay an extra |
|---|---|---|
| Your domicile address | One class of goods | $100 |
| Your domicile address and legal entity type | One class of goods | $100 |
| Your domicile information | Three classes of goods | $300 ($100 per class) |
| Your domicile address and legal entity type | Three classes of goods | $300 ($100 per class) |
When you use the free-form text box to list your goods or services instead of choosing your goods and services directly from the ID Manual in Trademark Center, it takes longer for the USPTO examining attorney to review your application. This additional fee is meant to encourage you to use the ID Manual and avoid delays due to ID-related issues.
You’ll be charged a $200 fee per class of goods or services if you:
Provide your own custom descriptions of your goods and services
Copy descriptions from the Trademark ID Manual and paste them in the free-form text box
You’ll pay this additional fee when you file your application. If you later add any classes to the application, you will pay the base filing fee and the free-form text box fee for each added class.
Fee for misusing a fill-in-the-blank field within the Trademark ID Manual
You’ll also pay the free-form text box fee per class if you have a fill-in-the-blank element in an entry taken from the ID Manual in Trademark Center and you:
Leave it empty
Insert goods or services unrelated to the selected goods or services
Insert information clearly inappropriate for the selected goods or services
The USPTO examining attorney assigned to your application could determine you owe this fee during the examination process.
If the identification you enter in the free-form text exceeds 1,000 characters (punctuation and spaces included), you’ll be charged $200 for each additional group of 1,000 characters after the first 1,000 characters in that class. You’ll only pay this fee when you file your application.
| If your application has | And your identification in the free-text box is | Then you’ll pay |
|---|---|---|
| One class | 1,000 characters | $200 (free-form text box fee) |
| One class | 1,001 characters | $400 ($200 free-form text box fee and $200 excess character fee) |
| Two classes | 1,000 characters in each class | $200 (free-form text box fee) |
| Two classes | 1,000 characters in one class 1,001 characters in the other | $600 ($400 free-form text box fee for two classes and $200 excess character fee for one class) |
Once you enter any free-form text in a class, all of the characters in that class will all be counted, even if you also selected other goods or services within that same class directly from the ID Manual in Trademark Center. That means the character count includes:
The descriptions you selected from the ID Manual in Trademark Center; and
Entries in the free-form text box
For example, you search the ID Manual within Trademark Center and add “saddles” and “saddle blankets” under class 18, then switch to the free-form text box and enter an additional 1,000-character description of other goods in class 18. You’d have more than 1,000 characters for class 18 (1,000 for the description you entered in the free-form text box, plus the characters for “saddles; saddle blankets” from the ID Manual).
How to avoid paying additional fees
The easiest way to avoid additional fees is to provide all the required information in the correct fields before submitting your application in Trademark Center and use the ID Manual in Trademark Center to identify your goods and services.
Trademark Center will display an additional fee acknowledgement box if you:
Omit required information
Use the free-form text box for identifications
You must check the acknowledgement box before you can continue without providing certain information. This increases transparency about the fees you’ll owe and lets you decide whether you want to submit the required information now with no additional fee or pay the additional fee now and submit the required information at a later time.
The free-form text box will display a character count at the bottom.