USPTO Seeks Comments on Patent Address Paperwork
Published Date: 5/21/2025
Notice
Summary
The USPTO is updating how people submit and manage power of attorney and address info for patents and applications. This affects inventors, lawyers, and businesses who deal with patent paperwork. They’re asking for public comments by July 21, 2025, before sending the changes to the Office of Management and Budget, with no new fees involved.
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 2 costs, 0 mixed.
Petition filing fees for specific requests
Two petition types under this collection carry filing fees under 37 CFR 1.17(f): petitions under 37 CFR 1.36(a) and petitions to waive 37 CFR 1.32(b)(4). The fees are $450 for undiscounted entities, $180 for small entities, and $90 for micro entities; the USPTO estimates 18 such petition filings annually totaling $5,760 in filing fees.
Customer Number: one-change updates and special uses
A USPTO Customer Number lets you associate many filings with a single correspondence mailing address so one change request updates all associated patents and applications. A Customer Number is required to grant power of attorney to more than ten practitioners or to establish a separate "fee address" for maintenance fees that differs from the correspondence address.
Estimated annual filing burden and cost
If you file power-of-attorney or address forms with the USPTO, the agency estimates 182,085 annual respondents and responses, totaling 88,922 burden hours and an estimated $12,493,972 in hourly respondent cost burden per year, plus $24,698 in non-hourly costs.
No new fees and public comment deadline
The USPTO states the revision/extension of this information collection involves no new fees and is soliciting public comments on the collection; comments must be submitted on or before July 21, 2025, before the package is sent to OMB for review.
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Key Dates
Department and Agencies
Related Federal Register Documents
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