Filing and Fees
Four changes to what a filing costs and how it has to be made. Entity discounts went up, information disclosure statements gained a size fee and a required written assertion, the free after-final look expired, and correspondence may now be signed through third-party software.
None of these pages computes a fee or assesses a filing. Thresholds and qualification criteria are deliberately absent.
These are the mechanics that touch every application, which makes them the easiest to carry forward out of habit after they have changed.
Two are pure cost: the Unleashing American Innovators Act raised entity discounts, and the FY2025 fee rule added information disclosure statement size fees on a cumulative basis. The larger discounts also raise the cost of getting entity status wrong, because the gap between paid and owed is bigger than it used to be.
Two are mechanics: AFCP 2.0 expired, so the free after-final look is gone, and from March 2024 patent correspondence may be signed through third-party document-signing software, subject to two conditions that are easy to satisfy accidentally and easy to break deliberately.
The Authorities
What Track One buys, on the record
Prioritised examination carries its own fee. What the record shows it buys is speed, and a great deal of it.
| Filing year | Track One applications | Share of filings | Granted within 12 months | Within 24 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 11,881 | 2.72% | 45.0% / 5.3% | 75.9% / 33.9% |
| 2020 | 12,655 | 2.96% | 52.0% / 4.1% | 79.8% / 31.4% |
| 2021 | 14,002 | 3.22% | 52.1% / 2.1% | 80.5% / 23.5% |
Within the same technology center, Track One applications received a first action about 446 days sooner, which is what the program's queue rule provides. They were also granted more often, by 11.7 points.
Who chooses Track One may explain part of the difference in grant rate, and this comparison does not isolate the program's effect on outcomes. The difference in speed is large enough that selection is unlikely to be the whole of it. Not advice about any particular application.
What These Pages Do Not Decide
- Whether any applicant qualifies as a small or micro entity. The criteria are not reproduced here, on purpose.
- Whether a particular information disclosure statement owes a fee, or what an application has accumulated.
- Whether a specific signature workflow complies, or whether any filing owes the surcharge.
- What to do after a final rejection.
Educational, not legal advice. These pages concern fees and filing mechanics. None of them says anything about patentability, novelty or non-obviousness.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Track One actually speed things up?
Substantially, on the record. Of US utility applications filed in 2020, 52.0% of those using Track One were granted within a year against 4.1% without it, and within the same technology center Track One applications received a first action about 446 days sooner. Who chooses Track One may explain part of the difference in grant rate; the difference in speed is what the program's queue rule provides. Not advice about any particular application.