By Donald Zuhn —

Last Friday, the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office published a final rule in the Federal Register (78
Fed. Reg. 4212)
setting and adjusting certain patent fees pursuant to the Office's fee-setting
authority under § 10 of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.  The publication of the 80-page final rule
(nearly) culminates a process that began last February when the Office
submitted a proposed fee schedule to the Patent Public Advisory Committee
(PPAC).  PPAC the held two public
hearings on the proposed schedule, and in September issued a report on that
schedule.  Following consideration of
PPAC's report, the published a notice of proposed rulemaking setting and adjusting
certain patent fees, which initiated a 45-day comment period that ended in
November.  Although the AIA allows the
new fee schedule to take effect 45 days after publication (i.e., March 4, 2013), in order to give Congress an opportunity to
review the schedule, the notice indicates that the final rule will take effect
on March 19, 2013, except for the following amendments, which will take effect
on January 1, 2014:

§ 1.18(a)(1), (b)(1),
(c)(1), and (d)(1) – patent issue and publication fees
§ 1.21(h)(1) – fee for
recording a patent assignment electronically
§ 1.482(a)(1)(i)(A),
(a)(1)(ii)(A), and (a)(2)(i) – international application filing, processing and
search fees)
§ 1.445(a)(1)(i)(A),
(a)(2)(i), (a)(3)(i), and (a)(4)(i) – international application transmittal and search fees

In September, we posted
several tables listing the fees for large entities that were proposed to change
(see "More on USPTO's Proposed New Fees – Part II").  One table sorted the fees as they might be
paid during the course of prosecution, another sorted the fees by amount, and a
third table sorted the fees by dollar and percent change.  Because only seven of the patent fees for
large entities changed from the notice of proposed rulemaking to the final
rule, the table below lists the fees as they might be paid during the course of
prosecution, with the current fee, proposed fee, final fee, and dollar change
from the proposed fee to the final fee (click on table to enlarge):