Another cost increase! Some sellers pay an extra 120,000 yuan per year

Cost increase warning!

Cross-border e-commerce sellers all want to increase their profit margins, but rising costs are a reality they have to face. Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO) announced that it will increase a number of fees, including trademarks and patents.

The United States is a major market for sellers, and if this cost increases, many sellers will feel the pressure of rising costs.

Patent and trademark fees increased significantly, by as much as 48%

The USPTO's price increase is mainly due to two reasons:

First, in order to lower the threshold for small and micro entities to enter the patent/trademark system, the United States issued the "Unleashing American Innovators Act" at the end of last year, which cut fees for some applicants by up to 80%.

Second, inflation has caused the USPTO's operating costs to exceed its revenue.

To make up for this loss, the USPTO decided to significantly increase fees for trademarks, patents, etc.

Among them, the official fee for new trademark applications will increase from US$250/class to US$350/class, a 40% increase. In addition, most patent-related fees will increase by 5% across the board, and patent application, search and examination are expected to increase by another 5%. The total cost of the three items will increase from US$1,820 to US$2,000.

It is worth mentioning that the total application fee, search fee, examination fee and certification fee for design patents will increase from the original US$1,760 to US$2,600 (approximately RMB 18,000 based on the mid-point exchange rate on June 5), an increase of 48%.

In addition, patent term extension applications, protest letter fees, patent trial and appeal fees, etc. have all increased to varying degrees.

The USPTO said the fee proposal is expected to be implemented around January 2025.

Compared to other countries, U.S. trademark /patent fees are already expensive, but they have continued to rise in recent years.

The most recent time was in 2020 and 2021, when trademark and patent fees also increased slightly. In 2021, the official fee for new trademark applications increased from US$225/class to US$250/class.

According to data from intellectual property data company Clarivate, in 2020, the USPTO submitted more than 700,000 categories, of which Chinese applicants accounted for 30% of all US trademark applications. In other words, 210,000 trademark applications came from China.

Nowadays, Chinese companies going overseas pay more and more attention to the protection of intellectual property rights. Therefore, the number of trademark and patent applications is gradually increasing. Especially in the United States, which attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, a large number of registration applications are submitted every year.

Therefore, if this part of the cost increases, the cost pressure on Chinese companies going overseas will increase again. However, the price increase is not all bad, for example, it plays a positive role in preventing trademark/patent trolls.

Costs rise to 360,000, sellers say pressure is increasing

Amazon’s mechanism for dealing with infringements has always been to remove products from shelves upon complaint, which has greatly promoted sellers’ trademark /patent applications. The greater the sales volume of sellers, the more they value intellectual property protection.

Toby, a seller in Shenzhen , said that they apply for 10 to 20 patents each year, and each costs about 12,000 yuan. According to this calculation, he needs to invest 120,000 to 240,000 yuan in patent costs each year.

When sellers develop new products, they usually look for products with great potential on Amazon, and then optimize and adjust the appearance. Therefore, the most common type of patent infringement on the platform is appearance patent infringement. Of course, appearance patents are also the most commonly applied patents by sellers.

If all Toby applied for were design patents, he would have to spend 180,000 to 360,000 yuan a year according to the increased prices. Compared with before, he would have to spend 60,000 to 120,000 yuan more in the future, which is a huge cost increase.

And this is just the official fee. If you add the lawyer's fee and agency fee, the cost will be even higher. Compared with patents, the application volume of trademarks is larger. Although the US standard has only increased by $100, if the volume increases, the cost will be enough to give sellers a headache.

However, the increase in the price of US trademarks and patents is not all bad. For example, it will play a positive role in blocking some bad applications.

As we all know, sellers hate trademark /patent trolls. These people will apply for trademarks/patents in the United States, then sue Chinese sellers and finally claim compensation. This is a highly profitable industry, so even if it is dirty money, many people do it against their conscience. Previously, Yien.com reported that a small company with a team of 4 people had an income of more than 7 million in less than half a year, and an annual income of up to 25 million.

In order to obtain the license in a very short time, these people often pay extra for accelerated review. The overall increase in fees will raise the cost of trademark/patent registration applications, which will have a certain inhibitory effect on their behavior. Especially for appearance patents, the proposed 48% increase in the application fee for appearance design patents will discourage many people.

Therefore, in the face of this round of price increases for US trademarks /patents, some sellers said that as long as business is good, they do not care about the cost, and business must continue. On the other hand, if the arrogance of trademark/patent trolls can be suppressed, price increases are also good.

Intellectual property awareness has been awakened, and China's application volume has doubled in five years

In fact, not only in the United States, but also in Europe, the number of patent/trademark applications from China is increasing.

According to the 2022 Patent Index recently released by the European Patent Office , Chinese companies and inventors submitted 19,041 patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO), a year-on-year increase of 15.1%, the highest among the 20 major patent application countries.

EPO spokesman Luis Berenguer Gimenez said that patent applications from China now account for nearly 10% of the office's total applications , more than doubling in the past five years and nearly five times what it was a decade ago . He noted that China is not only strong in digital communications, computer technology and artificial intelligence, but is also increasingly active in patent applications in many other fields, such as biotechnology and medical technology.

He stressed that given China's emphasis on protecting intellectual property rights to promote economic growth, the number of Chinese patent applications at the European Patent Office has hit a record high, which has global significance for protecting intellectual property rights.

As the pressure on traditional foreign trade increases, some factories have opened up online channels. Therefore, a new phenomenon has emerged in trademark applications in the cross-border e-commerce circle, that is, more and more factory-type sellers are applying for trademarks/patents. In particular, patent applications are given more attention.

In conclusion: Trademark /patent protection has regional limitations. If you want to be protected in another country, you need to obtain the approval of that country for registration. Therefore, trademarks and patents are a compulsory course for Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers. Chinese companies have always had a weak awareness of overseas intellectual property rights and weak risk prevention and control capabilities. This is also the reason why overseas intellectual property disputes occur frequently and trademark/patent trolls are often successful. Without intellectual property protection, corporate rights protection will be in a passive state and will also be at a disadvantage in market competition. Therefore, before "going out", you must make good intellectual property deployment.

US Trademark