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Holding a patent could be a lot costlier for businesses and founders in the years to come. The Trump administration is reportedly considering a substantial change to the patent process, which would raise trillions of dollars for the government but could substantially increase fees for patent holders. The Wall Street Journal reports the Commerce Department is considering charging patent holders between 1% and 5% of their overall patent value. It’s unclear if that will replace the current model, where companies and individuals pay up to three flat maintenance fees over a series of years (which typically works out to a few thousand dollars), or be in addition to those charges. Draft proposals and financial models are being worked on now, The Journal reports. If the change goes through, it could be especially onerous for Big Tech firms like Apple or Amazon, which file for thousands of patents per year, the vast majority of which are filed for defensive purposes and never utilized. The money raised from the fees would be used to pay down the $37 trillion national deficit and possibly other unidentified tasks. The Commerce Department did not reply to Fast Company‘s request for comment about the possible changes. No other country charges patent holders a percentage of a patent’s value. In the U.S., utility patent holders currently pay maintenance fees at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after issuance. The 11.5-year feethe largest of the threeis $8,280, and roughly half of all patents are abandoned before reaching that point, placing the innovation into the public domain. (Design patents are exempt from maintenance fees.) The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is a self-funded agency that covers its costs by collecting fees for the application for and issuance of patents and trademarks. Last year, it took in just under $4 billion in patent fees and $583 million in trademark feesand it maintains operational reserves to cover any financial shortfalls. A radical change to the 235-year-old office could bring about significant pushback from businesses, both domestic and international. Many would likely cut back on their patent filings, perhaps instead publishing information about innovations, which would prevent others from claiming a patent on that creation. Another potential hurdle is assigning valuations to patentssomething the USPTO has never done. Developing a reliable method would take time and money, and policymakers would also need to decide how to handle patents with little or no value (i.e., when the cost of obtaining the patent exceeds the products market value). The post-DOGE USPTO The potential changes to patent fees come just four months after the USPTO was the focus of a review by the Department of Government Efficiency. While it’s still unclear how many workers might have been laid off or taken early retirement, the department was ordered to halt its plans to recruit approximately 800 new employees, primarily patent examiners. In addition, Vaishali Udupa, the agency’s commissioner for patents, resigned in Februaryand people who work regularly with the department say theyve heard of other, lower-level departures. The wait time today to patent a product averages 30 months. (Trademarks take about 10 months to process.) Without the new employees, that could significantly extend those timesand adding a new patent process into the mix could stretch it out further. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick oversees the USPTO and pledged during his confirmation hearing to tackle the application backlog, which he called unacceptable.
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E-Commerce
If youve proven your product on a pilot line, and its time to turn up real-world production, beware because many companies stumble on their first large-scale build. Before you pour concrete or sign any equipment orders, look at the full landscape of challenges: engineering, supply chain, utilities, and the human relationships that hold it all together. Scaling up isnt as simple as adding another shift. Its multiplying everything you do by orders of magnitude. Moving from pilot lots to commercial volumes often means a 1,000- to 10,000-fold jump in throughput, with megawatts of electrical load, and water usage that can rival a small town. Construction alone can run $300- to $950-per-square-foot before a single machine is installed on the floor. Miss the mark and the cost isnt just financial; its reputational. Schedule slips, lost customers, and bruised reputations follow fast. To move from pilot line to production line with confidence, follow these four steps for a successful scale-up. Master the process First, nail down the process by mapping the critical quality parameters like temperature, humidity, pressure, cycle time, purity, and set hard limits for each. Then, stress test them, and challenge your R&D team better. Run design-of-experiments on the pilot line or in a digital model to reveal where small shifts can trigger big cost savings. For instance, one client learned that relaxing humidity from 1% to 5% would half HVAC tonnage and save millions in capital expenditures and operating expendituresproof that tiny tweaks can save a budget. By truly grasping the process, you can size every supporting elementutilities, material flow, staffing, and automationas one integrated system rather than a patchwork of guesses. Capture the data, lock the findings into a concise process design package, and carry that document forward. When you know exactly what the process is, the next steps become simpler and cheaper. Dont underestimate planning Start with the end in mind by defining must-hit key performance metrics (KPIs) and assign a value to each. Look past day one, and sketch how the site should flex five, 10 or even 15 years out to ensure that any expansion wont require a new round of demolition. Build your budget around total cost of ownership because operating expenses usually eclipse capital expenses within the first few years. Early in design, run what-if scenarios on power, water, logistics, and labor to see where small changes may unlock big lifetime savings. A solid plan also links directly to the process data you just captured, allowing you to size utilities, floor space, and headcount as one coherent ecosystem instead of a series of isolated line items. Always remember that good planning can overcome poor execution, but poor planning cant be overcome by the best project execution. Find the right team Scaling up succeeds or fails on people. Name a dedicated project leader with the authority to make fast decisions and free that person from the distractions of their current day job. Build a core owners team that blends operations, engineering, finance, with environmental, health, and safety, so that key decisions are vetted through multiple lenses in real time. When selecting outside partners, look for firms with proven scale-up experience and incentives that align with yours. Create mutually beneficial contracts that keep everyone rowing in the same direction. Onboard partners early, regularly co-locate them physically or in a virtual war room, and encourage short, recurring stand-ups to surface issues before they become costly delays. A well-constructed, well-aligned team will turn your solid plan into an on-time, on-budget reality. The wrong team will burn through schedule, cash, and goodwill faster than any technical misstep. Implement strong management Once ground is broken, disciple becomes the differentiator. Put a seasoned program manager at the helm to own the master schedule, budget, and KPI dashboard. Resist the temptation to micromanage the process, rather schedule regular data-driven reviews that spotlight variances early while they are still cheap to fix. Pair that oversight with a formal management-of-change process, changes to scope, design, or materials routes through a single, transparent workflow that weights cost, timeline, safety, and regulatory impact before approval. Finally, capture lessons learned in real-time, not at project closeout, so improvements feed straight back into construction and into future scale-ups. Strong, visible management turns a good team and a good plan into a plant that starts up on time and performs from day one. Do these four things well, and your new facility wont merely open on schedule, it will deliver the throughput, quality, and cost profile that turns a promising idea into a market-shaping reality. Mike Sewell is director of innovation at Gresham Smith.
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E-Commerce
Critical minerals underpin our countrys transition to energy dominance. These minerals are found in everything from battery storage to geothermal technology, nuclear energy, transportation, and more.Without critical minerals we cannot produce batteries, and without batteries we cannot power the devices we use every day in business and at home. Our reliance on batteries is only expected to increase. According to the International Energy Agency, global battery manufacturing capacity reached 3 terawatt-hours in 2024. The agency predicts that we could see another tripling of production in the next five years.For the United States to be a legitimate contender in this sector, we need to increase our access to critical minerals. This means diversifying our supply chains and becoming leading producers of these metals. To do this, we need to understand where and how our nation sources these materials. We also need to share the benefits of battery recycling as a primary source of these materials with a broader audience. Opening new U.S. mines is challenging The key metals that go into making rechargeable batteries are found in electronics, data energy storage systems, vehicles, tablets, and smartphones. Lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese are the primary materials found in rechargeable batteries.In the U.S., there is one active mine for lithium and one for nickel. There are no U.S. mines for cobalt and manganese, despite recent efforts to open a cobalt mine.Opening a new U.S. mine requires three key elements: financing that demonstrates a positive return, a high-quality resource with sufficient size and quality, and community support. Some projects have suspended operations due to failures in one or more of these areas.As a result, the U.S. relies heavily on lithium imports from mineral-rich countries like Australia, Chile, and China. The Democratic Republic of Congo leads in global cobalt production, with Australia, Brazil, and Indonesia possessing some of the largest nickel reserves.Cobalt can be very hard to find, and big deposits are rare. The Salmon River Mountains in Idaho have one of the only known deposits in the country. Lithium and nickel can be found across the country, and there are exploratory plans underway to open other mines but that is a long-term solution for establishing domestic supply chains Battery recycling can provide critical minerals In the short-term, the U.S. can turn to battery recycling to capture and refine a diverse range of critical minerals. Although the battery recycling sector has been around for decades, it has been under used as a compliment to mining and a strategic way to diversify and strengthen our domestic supply chains. Critical minerals must be mined and purified to create the electronic devices we use today so why not reuse these minerals over and over again.The Energy Department reported in 2023 that the United States had battery recycling facilities capable of reclaiming more than 35,000 tons of battery materials and that number is growing. With the current U.S. capacity to process and refine end-of-life batteries and manufacturing scrap into battery-grade materials to manufacture new batteries, we are already well positioned to increase our domestic supplies and keep the materials we already have within our borders.Battery recycling offers the U.S. an immediate opportunity to enhance its national security by strengthening our domestic supply chains. When we arent sourcing materials from foreign entities, we are less vulnerable to global disruptions. In the long-term, through battery recycling, we can increase our global competitiveness in the critical minerals industry by creating a closed-loop supply chain of these materials.The topic of critical minerals impacts a vast range of industries and is too important to not take immediate action. Battery recycling is a key component to securing our nations critical mineral independence and becoming a dominant player in onshoring critical mineral production and manufacturing.David Klanecky is CEO and President of Cirba Solutions
Category:
E-Commerce
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