When are patent maintenance fees due?

US utility patent maintenance fees are due at three points after the patent is granted: 3.5 years, 7.5 years, and 11.5 years. There is a 6-month grace period after each due date during which you can still pay with a surcharge. Design patents and plant patents do NOT require maintenance fees. If a maintenance fee is not paid by the end of the grace period, the patent expires.

How much are patent maintenance fees?

Maintenance fees increase at each stage and depend on entity size. For large entities they run roughly $2,000 (3.5 yr), $3,800 (7.5 yr), and $7,800 (11.5 yr) — escalating to encourage abandonment of low-value patents. Small entities (most startups and individuals) pay 50% less, and micro entities pay 75% less. Exact amounts change periodically; always check the current USPTO fee schedule.

What happens if you miss a patent maintenance fee?

If you miss the due date, you have a 6-month grace period to pay with a surcharge. If you miss the grace period too, the patent expires. You may be able to revive an unintentionally lapsed patent by petitioning the USPTO, paying the fee plus a substantial petition fee, and stating the delay was unintentional. Revival is discretionary and not guaranteed, especially if a long time has passed.

Should I always pay patent maintenance fees?

No. The escalating fee structure is deliberately designed to make patent holders abandon patents that are no longer worth maintaining. A large fraction of US patents are allowed to lapse before their full 20-year term because the maintenance fees exceed the patent's commercial value. Before each payment, ask: is this patent still generating value (products, licensing, deterrence, strategic coverage) that exceeds the fee? If not, letting it lapse and entering the public domain is the rational choice.

Patent Life Cycle

Patent Maintenance Fees

A granted patent is not "done." To keep it alive for the full 20 years, you must pay maintenance fees at three checkpoints. Miss one and your patent expires — sometimes that is a disaster, and sometimes it is exactly the right move.

Fee amounts are approximate and change periodically — always confirm against the current USPTO fee schedule. Educational guide, not legal advice.

The schedule

3.5 years after grant

Large ~$2,000Small ~$1,000Micro ~$500

First checkpoint. By now you usually know if the patented product has traction.

7.5 years after grant

Large ~$3,800Small ~$1,900Micro ~$950

Mid-life. The fee jumps. Many marginal patents are abandoned here.

11.5 years after grant

Large ~$7,800Small ~$3,900Micro ~$1,950

Final payment, covers years 11.5 to 20. The highest fee — only worthwhile for patents still creating real value.

Entity size: who pays what

Maintenance fees depend on your entity size. Large entity is the default (companies with 500+ employees, or that have licensed to such a company). Small entity status (50% discount) applies to most individuals, startups, non-profits, and businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Micro entity status (75% discount) applies to small entities that also meet income limits and have filed fewer than a set number of prior applications.

Claiming the wrong entity size can have consequences. Improperly claiming small or micro status to underpay fees can render a patent unenforceable. If your company grows past the threshold or licenses to a large entity, you must update your status.

The grace period and the surcharge

Each maintenance fee has a 6-month grace period after the due date. You can still pay during the grace period, but with a surcharge added. This is a safety net, not a plan — relying on the grace period risks an administrative slip that lets the patent lapse.

The practical danger: maintenance fee deadlines are easy to forget, especially years after grant when the inventor may have moved on or the company restructured. Many patents lapse purely through administrative oversight, not deliberate choice. Docketing systems and maintenance-fee services exist precisely to prevent this.

Reviving a lapsed patent

If a patent expires for non-payment, you may petition to revive it if the delay was unintentional. You pay the missed maintenance fee plus a substantial petition fee and file a statement that the delay was unintentional.

Revival is discretionary and gets harder the longer the patent has been lapsed. There is also an intervening-rights problem: parties who began using the invention while the patent was lapsed may have acquired rights to continue. A revived patent may not be fully enforceable against everyone. Do not treat revival as a reliable fallback.

When to let a patent lapse on purpose

Here is what surprises people: a large fraction of US patents are deliberately abandoned before their 20-year term ends. The escalating fee structure is intentional policy — it pushes holders to release low-value patents into the public domain rather than hoard them.

Before each payment, run the math. Is the patent still generating value that exceeds the fee? Value can come from: products you sell that practice it, licensing revenue, deterring competitors, strategic coverage of a portfolio, or defensive value in cross-licensing. If none of those apply and the technology has moved on, paying $3,900 or $7,800 to maintain a patent nobody is using is simply burning money.

For a startup with a portfolio, maintenance-fee decisions are a regular pruning exercise: keep the patents that protect the core product and the most valuable inventions; let the peripheral or obsolete ones lapse. There is no shame in abandonment — it is rational portfolio management, and it is how the patent bargain is supposed to work.

Maintenance fee schedule calculator →What happens when a patent expires →What a patent really costs →Check your entity status →