Getting Your Goods and Services Wrong Is an Expensive Mistake

The USPTO's ID Manual is a database of pre-approved descriptions for goods and services organized by trademark class. When an applicant selects language directly from the ID Manual, that language has already been reviewed and accepted by the USPTO as sufficiently specific, definite, clear, accurate, and concise. It passes through examination without requiring an attorney to assess whether the description meets the applicable standard.

When an applicant instead writes a custom, free-form description, that description requires examination. An examining attorney must evaluate whether the identification meets the same standard that ID Manual entries already satisfy by definition. As such, using custom descriptions comes with surcharges to reflect the additional workload.

Currently, that fee is $200 per class. Moreover, if your free-form description exceeds 1,000 characters, an additional $200 fee applies to that class. When you combine these with the standard filing fee, the cost of a single class for free-form applicants with complex business descriptions comes to just under $800 before]\ attorney fees are factored in. 

The goods and services surcharge system isn’t intended to be punitive. It simply allocates the cost of extra work to the applicant who creates it, rather than the office itself. Since longer free-form descriptions require more time to read and evaluate, these applicants are required to pay larger fees than applicants who go by the ID manual, or the applicants who keep their custom descriptions as concise as possible. 

In line with that, to avoid additional fees, simply opt for ID manual descriptions, or, if your business offering isn’t encompassed within the manual, reduce the free-form descriptions as much as possible.

The ID Manual covers a wide range of goods and services in all 45 trademark classes. Many applicants in established industries, including retail, food and beverage, software, professional services, and consumer goods, will find that the manual contains language that accurately describes what they offer. In those cases, the task is not to write a description but to identify which entries most precisely capture the goods and services the applicant actually provides. That selection process requires care and legal expertise because over-broad or inaccurate ID Manual selections carry their own risks, including potential office actions for failure to accurately identify the goods and services. The goal is to select entries that are both accurate and sufficient.

The ID Manual does not cover every type of business, and it probably never will. Specialized technology companies, novel service models, and cross-category businesses operate in ways the existing classification system doesn’t anticipate. The owners of such businesses find that the pre-approved language from the ID manual doesn’t describe what they do with enough accuracy. In these cases, free-form text is not just recommended, but necessary, as it helps avoid a registration that may not cover what the business actually does, or one that is vulnerable to challenge on the basis of the identification itself.

The appropriate approach is to draft the free-form description as precisely and concisely as possible. Precision serves two purposes. First, a description that is specific, definite, clear, accurate, and concise is less likely to draw an office action requesting clarification or amendment, which would extend the examination timeline and add attorney time to the cost of the application. Second, keeping the description under 1,000 characters, where feasible, avoids the character-based surcharge, reducing the per-class cost.

When drafting free-form text, ask yourself this question: what is the minimum language needed to identify the goods and services with sufficient specificity? 

The total cost of a trademark application has always depended on the number of classes, the filing basis, and whether an office action requires a response. The 2025 goods and services surcharges add a new variable: how well and concisely the goods are described. Two applicants filing in the same number of classes with similar businesses may now pay substantially different amounts depending entirely on how their identifications are drafted.

This change makes it more important than ever to properly identify which classes and goods and services you should select in your application. The description within each class now has direct cost consequences in addition to the scope and protection consequences it has always carried.

Use Trama's free class assist tool to find out which trademark classes apply to your business: tramatm.com/class-assist

To have your application prepared with the ID Manual in mind, and free-form text reserved for situations where it is genuinely necessary, submit your brand name or logo for Trama's free lawyer's check: tramatm.com/verification

No. The additional $200 surcharge for descriptions exceeding 1,000 characters applies only to free-form, custom-written descriptions. ID Manual selections are exempt from the character-based fee regardless of their length. This exemption is one of the primary reasons to prioritize ID Manual language wherever it accurately describes the goods or services at issue.

If an identification in a given class includes any free-form text, the class is treated as a free-form filing for purposes of the surcharge. The $200 per-class fee applies to the entire class, not just the portion that contains custom language. If the total description in that class exceeds 1,000 characters, the additional character-based surcharge also applies. Minimizing the use of free-form text within each class is therefore important even when some custom language is unavoidable.

An attorney experienced in trademark prosecution can identify which goods and services are adequately covered by ID Manual language and draft any necessary free-form text with the precision and economy of language needed to minimize both surcharges and the risk of an office action. In cases where free-form text is unavoidable, the attorney's role is to ensure that the description satisfies the USPTO's examination standard on the first review, which reduces the time and cost of the application overall.