2024-15704. Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Rules for Patent Maintenance Fees

Table 1—Total Burden Hours and Hourly Costs to Private Sector Respondents

Item No.	Item	Estimated annual respondents	Responses per respondent	Estimated annual responses	Estimated time for response (hours)	Estimated hourly burden (hour/year)	Rate 1 ($/hour)	Estimated annual respondent cost burden
		(a)	(b)	(a) × (b) = (c)	(d)	(c) × (d) = (e)	(f)	(e) × (f) = (g)
1	Petition to Accept Unintentionally Delayed Payment of Maintenance Fee in an Expired Patent (37 CFR 1.378(b)) (Web-based ePetition and PTO/SB/66)	2,500	1	2,500	1	2,500	$447	$1,117,500
2	Petition to Review Refusal to Accept Payment of Maintenance Fee Prior to Expiration of Patent (37 CFR 1.377)	1	1	1	4	4	447	1,788
3	Petition for Reconsideration of Decision on Petition Refusing to Accept Delayed Payment of Maintenance Fee in an Expired Patent (37 CFR 1.378(d))	115	1	115	8	920	447	411,240
	Totals	2,616		2,616		3,424		1,530,528
1  2023 Report of the Economic Survey, published by the Committee on Economics of Legal Practice of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA); pg. F-41. The USPTO uses the average billing rate for intellectual property work in all firms which is $447 per hour ( https://www.aipla.org/​home/​news-publications/​economic-survey).

Estimated Total Annual Respondent Non-hourly Cost Burden: $2,577,316. There are no capital start-up, maintenance costs, or recordkeeping costs associated with this information collection. However, the USPTO estimates that the total annual (non-hour) cost burden for this information collection, in the form of filing fees and postage, is $2,577,316.

Filing Fees

Two petitions (IC lines 1 and 2) in this information collection have associated filing fees resulting in $2,577,052 in filing fees.

Table 2—Filing Fees

Item No.	Fee code(s)	Item	Estimated annual responses	Filing fee ($)	Non-hourly cost burden
			(a)	(b)	(a) × (b) = (c)
1	1558	Petition to Accept Unintentionally Delayed Payment of Maintenance Fee in an Expired Patent (37 CFR 1.378(b)) (undiscounted entity)	530	$2,100	$1,113,000
1	2558	Petition to Accept Unintentionally Delayed Payment of Maintenance Fee in an Expired Patent (37 CFR 1.378(b)) (small entity)	1,515	840	1,272,600
1	3558	Petition to Accept Unintentionally Delayed Payment of Maintenance Fee in an Expired Patent (37 CFR 1.378(b)) (micro entity)	455	420	191,100
2	1463	Petition to Review Refusal to Accept Payment of Maintenance Fee Prior to Expiration of Patent (37 CFR 1.377) (undiscounted entity)	1	220	220
2	2463	Petition to Review Refusal to Accept Payment of Maintenance Fee Prior to Expiration of Patent (37 CFR 1.377) (small entity)	1	88	88
2	3463	Petition to Review Refusal to Accept Payment of Maintenance Fee Prior to Expiration of Patent (37 CFR 1.377) (micro entity)	1	44	44
		Totals	2,503		$2,577,052