IDS Size Fees and the Required Assertion
USPTO fee-setting rule, effective 19 January 2025. Read from the primary document; quotations verified against its own text.
Effective January 19, 2025, the USPTO's fee-setting rule introduced size fees for information disclosure statements based on cumulative item counts and requires every IDS to contain a clear written assertion that the appropriate size fee accompanies it or that none is due.
Most coverage of this rule is about continuations. It also changed something every prosecutor touches: information disclosure statements now carry size fees keyed to cumulative item counts, and every IDS must contain a clear written assertion that the right fee is enclosed or that none is due. The assertion is the part that changes a workflow, because it is required whether or not a fee is owed, which makes it a step on every filing rather than a step on large ones. The cumulative counting also means the fee depends on what was filed before, not only on what is being filed now.
The rule's own words on the assertion are plain: "the USPTO is requiring that an IDS contain a clear written assertion by the applicant and patent owner that the IDS is accompanied by the appropriate IDS size fee or that no IDS size fee is required." That is a statement the filer makes, on every IDS, in both directions.
Two Changes, One of Them on Every Filing
| If the IDS | Written assertion required | What the fee turns on |
|---|---|---|
| Owes a size fee | Yes, that the appropriate fee accompanies it | Cumulative item count across the application |
| Owes no size fee | Yes, that no fee is required | Cumulative item count across the application |
The size fee. The fee keys to cumulative item counts across an application rather than to a single submission. Whether a fee is owed on today's IDS therefore depends on what was filed before, and a per-filing check cannot answer it. The counting obligation sits with the filer, not the examiner.
The assertion. It is required in both cases, whether a fee is due or not. That makes it a step on every IDS rather than a step triggered by size. A template that adds the assertion only when a fee is enclosed is the likelier failure, because the IDS owing nothing still needs the sentence saying so.
What This Page Deliberately Leaves Out
The same cached rule is distilled twice on this site for different provisions. Its continuing-application surcharges are covered in the continuation cluster and are not restated here; this page carries only the IDS provisions. If the two ever seem to disagree, the primary source governs.
The thresholds and the amounts are not carried either. They sit in the fee schedule, which changes with each fee-setting rule, and carrying them here would invite readers to compute their own fee from a page that cannot see their file. The two points this page does make, cumulative counting and the assertion on every IDS, are structural and will outlast the next schedule.
The rule is nearly two years old at the date above, and any later fee-setting rule supersedes it in part. The assertion requirement and the cumulative design are what to check against the current rule; the numbers were never here.
What This Does Not Decide
- It does not say whether any IDS owes a fee.
- It does not say how many items an application has accumulated.
- It does not carry the continuation surcharges from the same rule; those are in the continuation cluster.
- It concerns fees and filing mechanics, not patentability.
Educational, not legal advice. This page reports what an authority says. Applying it to a matter is work for a registered practitioner with the file in front of them.
Sources
- USPTO, Setting and Adjusting Patent Fees During Fiscal Year 2025, 89 FR 91898 (Nov. 20, 2024), IDS provisions at 91923 to 91924
- Back to the cluster