The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a final rule in the Federal Register on August 3, 2020, that includes a fee for patent applications that are not filed in the DOCX format. The fee only applies to non-provisional utility applications and not to design, plant, or provisional applications.
The effective date of this new fee was most recently delayed in a final rule published in the Federal Register on March 27, 2023, and was scheduled to become effective on June 30, 2023. Through a new final rule published today in the Federal Register, the USPTO is delaying the effective date of the non-DOCX filing fee from June 30, 2023 to the new date of January 17, 2024.
