Answers · Audits & Portfolio Pruning
Are patent maintenance fees worth paying, or should we let patents lapse?
Updated June 2026
The short answer
Worth paying for some patents and not others, and the fee schedule is built to force that distinction. US utility patent maintenance fees fall due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after grant and roughly double at each stage: under the current USPTO schedule a large entity pays roughly $2,000 at the first window and roughly $8,000 at the third, about $14,000 per patent over a full term.
The market's own answer is blunt. Published analyses of USPTO data indicate more than half of US patents lapse before their full 20-year term for nonpayment, which means most owners eventually conclude that most patents stop earning their keep.
The escalating schedule is a feature, not a tax
The USPTO deliberately back-loads the cost of a patent. Filing and prosecution get a young invention protected while its value is unknown; the rising maintenance fees then ask the owner, three times, whether the bet paid off. By the third window the patent is more than a decade old, the technology has either become a product, become leverage, or become history, and the fee is sized so that paying it for sentiment hurts.
Foreign protection sharpens the question further. Most countries charge annuities every year, often from the application date and rising with age, so a family maintained across many jurisdictions can cost multiples of its US fees. This is why lapse decisions usually start abroad: trimming a family back to the two or three countries that matter preserves the core protection at a fraction of the carrying cost.
A keep-or-lapse test you can run at each window
Pay the fee if the patent covers a product you sell or plan to sell, reads on a competitor's product, has documented licensing interest, or holds space your market is moving into. If it does none of those, the fee buys nothing but the feeling of a bigger portfolio. We walk through this four-test screen in detail in our pruning framework, and it works precisely because it is checkable: each test has evidence behind it, a product map, competitor analysis, citations, or correspondence, rather than an opinion.
The common failure mode is defaulting. Annuity services and outside counsel will pay every fee forever unless instructed otherwise, because their incentive is to never be the one who let an asset die. The fix is a standing decision gate: no fee gets paid at the 7.5 and 11.5 year windows without someone re-running the test.
What lapsing actually costs you
Honesty requires the other side of the ledger. A lapsed patent enters the public domain: competitors may freely practice it, and you cannot get it back if the market turns. For patents near the four tests' borderline, that option value argues for paying one more window, especially at the cheap first stage. For patents that fail clearly, the option is worthless, and the budget is better spent on new filings that protect what the company is becoming rather than what it was.
If a patent has any external relevance, evaluate a sale or license before lapsing; assets that fail your product test can still pass someone else's. The sequencing matters: a sale takes months, a lapse takes a missed deadline.
Related questions
What happens if we miss a maintenance fee deadline?
There is a 6-month grace period with a surcharge. After that the patent expires, and reinstatement requires a USPTO petition showing the delay was unintentional, which is a legal process for your patent counsel and never a planning assumption.
Do small companies pay the same fees?
No. US law discounts most USPTO fees, including maintenance fees, by 60 percent for small entities and 80 percent for micro entities under current rules. The escalating structure is the same, so the keep-or-lapse logic still applies, just at lower stakes.
Do other countries have maintenance fees too?
Yes, and usually heavier ones. Most jurisdictions charge annual annuities that increase with the patent's age, in many cases starting before grant. For widely filed families, foreign annuities are commonly the larger share of lifetime carrying cost.
Should we sell a patent rather than let it lapse?
If it has any external relevance, try. Most patents that sell trade in the five to low six figures based on published broker data, which is modest but better than zero. Start 12 months before the fee deadline so the sale process and the lapse decision do not collide.
Make the next fee window a decision, not a default
We can screen your portfolio against products, competitors, and licensing demand before the next round of fees comes due. The discovery call is free.
Talk with Our TeamipCapital Group is a consultancy, not a law firm, and nothing on this page is legal advice. Dollar figures on this page are typical market ranges for professional IP services, drawn from published sources and industry experience across a variety of providers. They are not an ipCG quote or rate card; every ipCG engagement is individually scoped and priced. See how our pricing works.