There are maintenance fees that you have to pay to maintain your patent at certain time intervals during the duration of your patent term. Failure to do so will allow your patent to become abandoned. Current fees can be found at the US patent trademark office’s website which has a ton of great information.
After a patent application has been examined and found allowable, the patent applicant must pay an Issue fee set by the US Patent Office within the prescribed time period. After a patent is granted, the patent owner will be responsible for paying maintenance fees at the 4th, 8th and 12th year anniversary dates, in order to maintain the enforceability of the patent as you can see from https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/gotconcept/elon-musks-greatest-inventions/ article.
The maximum term for a United States Utility Patents that would be issued today is 20 years from the earliest claimed priority date. The term can be shortened in various situations. One of those is failure to pay US patent maintenance fees due and payable at 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 years measured from the issue date of the original patent. If these fees are not paid in a timely manner, the patent term expires prematurely and the patented subject matter enters the public domain.
For the US, maintenance fees must be paid three and a half, seven and a half, and eleven and a half years after the patent issues to maintain it for the full term. Other countries require a fee every year. You can hire a patent agency, like InventHelp, or a patent attorney or annuity service to remind you of the deadlines. It is not possible to pay in advance. Please contact your patent attorney for further assistance. You do have to take action in order to maintain your patent.
