Filing fees at the Office of Patents and Trademarks are subject to change every October, so the exact amount of fees may vary from year to year. There are numerous different application forms and fees for different types of patents. If you crossbreed two flowers to create a new hybrid, that involves different fees than for a new manufacturing process or design for furniture. The fee structure for each is similar, however. The basic filing fee allows you to file up to 20 claims for your product, so something that performs multiple actions can make a claim for each. If your invention slices, dices, and shreds, performing these three actions could be considered separately. Once the patent is actually granted, there's another fee for being issued the patent. Again, this differs among utility, design, and plant patents. In order to protect your patent as long as possible, there's a separate fee structure for renewing your patent at different intervals. The Patent and Trademark Office also charges a number of other fees for special circumstances. For individual inventors or small companies, the fees are generally half as large as those charged to large corporations.
