USPTO trademark practice doesn't stand still. Between fee restructuring, a full platform migration, and increasingly active use of post-registration challenge tools, the practical landscape for filing and maintaining a mark has shifted meaningfully in the past couple of years.
The New Fee Structure
As of January 2025, the USPTO replaced its old TEAS Standard and TEAS Plus tiers with a single Base application fee of $350 per class, layered with targeted surcharges: $100 per class for insufficient information at filing, $200 per class for describing goods or services in free text rather than using the USPTO's own pre-approved ID Manual language, and $200 per class for every additional 1,000 characters beyond the first in that description. The Madrid Protocol filing fee under Section 66(a) rose to $600 per class shortly after. For applications with long, highly customized identifications, the effective per-class cost can run well beyond the $350 headline figure — which has made precise, ID Manual-aligned drafting more valuable than it used to be.
The Trademark Center Replaces TEAS
Late 2025 saw the USPTO fully retire the TEAS filing system in favor of a unified Trademark Center platform, with identity verification built into the account layer. Anyone who filed under the old system will notice a materially different interface for new applications and post-registration filings alike.
Expungement and Reexamination Are Being Used Actively
The Trademark Modernization Act introduced two ex parte proceedings aimed at clearing unused marks off the register: expungement, available between the third and tenth year after registration, for marks that were never used in commerce at all; and reexamination, available within the first five years, for marks that weren't actually in use as of the specific date claimed in the application. Both cost $400 per challenged class — meaningfully less than a full Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancellation proceeding — and both have seen substantial uptake since becoming available, with the USPTO reporting thousands of proceedings initiated to date. For brand owners, this cuts two ways: it's a genuinely useful tool for clearing a blocking registration that isn't actually in use, and it's also a reason to make sure your own registrations reflect real, current use before someone else finds them first.
Letter of Protest Practice
A Letter of Protest lets a third party submit evidence for the examining attorney's consideration while an application is still pending — useful for flagging a likely conflict before it registers, rather than opposing it afterward. It costs $150 to file, the USPTO generally decides within about two months whether to admit the evidence into the record, and that decision is final and not appealable. Compared to a full opposition proceeding, it's a fast, low-cost way to put a concern on the record early.
What This Means in Practice
Taken together, these changes reward precision — in how goods and services are described, in how quickly Office Actions get answered, and in how actively a portfolio is monitored for both outgoing risk (are your own marks vulnerable to expungement?) and incoming risk (is someone filing something too close to your mark right now?). Firms managing active portfolios increasingly rely on trademark watch services paired with counsel who can move quickly on a Letter of Protest or a TMA petition when something surfaces.
