A Request for Continued Examination, or RCE, reopens prosecution of your U.S. patent application after the examiner has closed it, usually with a final rejection. Filing one lets you submit new claim amendments, arguments, or evidence without abandoning the application or losing your original filing date. A complete RCE has three pieces filed together: the transmittal form (PTO/SB/30), a substantive submission responding to the last Office action, and the fee, which starts at $300 for a micro entity and runs to $1,500 for a large entity on a first RCE.1eCFR. 37 CFR 1.114 – Request for Continued Examination2United States Patent and Trademark Office. USPTO Fee Schedule
When Filing an RCE Makes Sense
Prosecution is “closed” when the examiner issues a final Office action, when your application is under appeal, when you receive a notice of allowance, or when any other action shuts down further examination.1eCFR. 37 CFR 1.114 – Request for Continued Examination The most common trigger is a final rejection. Once you receive one, your response options narrow: a minor amendment that puts the application in condition for allowance, a notice of appeal, or an RCE.
An RCE is the right tool when your response needs real substance the examiner would otherwise refuse to enter after final. That includes a significant claim amendment that would require a new prior art search, an expert declaration or new test data, or arguments meaningful enough that the examiner needs the time and authority of a fresh examination round to consider them.
The deadline is unforgiving. The maximum statutory period for responding to any Office action is six months from the mailing date.3United States Patent and Trademark Office. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure 710 – Period for Reply In practice, the USPTO sets a shortened period of three months on virtually all final rejections.4United States Patent and Trademark Office. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure 706 – Rejection of Claims You can buy time in one-month increments by paying extension fees, but the clock cannot run past six months total. Miss that absolute deadline and the application is abandoned.
Applications That Cannot Use an RCE
The RCE procedure is not available for every application. The rule expressly excludes design patent applications, provisional applications, utility or plant applications filed before June 8, 1995, international design applications, and patents in reexamination.1eCFR. 37 CFR 1.114 – Request for Continued Examination If your application falls into one of these categories and you receive a final rejection, your paths forward are a notice of appeal or a continuation application.5United States Patent and Trademark Office. Request for Continued Examination Transmittal
What Goes in the RCE Package
A proper RCE has three components, and all three must be filed at the same time. Missing any one of them means the request is not complete.
The Transmittal Form
The official form is PTO/SB/30, “Request for Continued Examination (RCE) Transmittal.”5United States Patent and Trademark Office. Request for Continued Examination Transmittal It identifies your application number and confirms that you are requesting continued examination. If you file electronically through Patent Center, the system generates the equivalent transmittal as part of the submission workflow.
The Substantive Submission
Your submission must respond to whatever Office action is outstanding. The regulation defines “submission” broadly. It can be a claim amendment, new arguments addressing the rejections, new evidence such as declarations or test data, or an Information Disclosure Statement.1eCFR. 37 CFR 1.114 – Request for Continued Examination One thing that does not count: an appeal brief or reply brief filed during an appeal will not be treated as a submission for RCE purposes. If you are withdrawing an appeal to file an RCE, prepare a separate submission.
The submission should do real work toward resolving the rejections. Filing an RCE with a token response just to keep the application alive wastes money and prosecution time, and it usually earns another final rejection.
The Fee
The fee depends on whether this is your first or a later RCE in the same application, and on your entity size.2United States Patent and Trademark Office. USPTO Fee Schedule
- First RCE: $1,500 large entity, $600 small entity, $300 micro entity.
- Second or subsequent RCE: $2,860 large entity, $1,144 small entity, $572 micro entity.
The jump from first to second RCE is steep by design; the USPTO wants to discourage serial filings. Small entity status cuts most patent fees by 60 percent and micro entity status by 80 percent.6United States Patent and Trademark Office. Save on Fees With Small and Micro Entity Status If you have not already established your entity status, do so before filing.
Extension of Time Fees Add Up Fast
If you cannot prepare the RCE submission within the three-month shortened period, extensions come in one-month blocks with rapidly escalating fees:2United States Patent and Trademark Office. USPTO Fee Schedule
- First month: $235 large, $94 small, $47 micro.
- Second month: $690 large, $276 small, $138 micro.
- Third month: $1,590 large, $636 small, $318 micro.
These are cumulative with the RCE fee itself. Waiting until the fifth and sixth months to file can cost a large entity more than $6,000 in extension fees on top of the RCE fee. Getting the response drafted early is one of the simplest ways to control cost.
How to File
Electronic Filing Through Patent Center
The fastest and most reliable method is Patent Center.7United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patent Center Navigate to your application, choose to file a new submission, select the appropriate document code for the RCE transmittal, and upload the completed PTO/SB/30 form along with the amendment, arguments, and any declarations as separate PDFs. Pay the RCE fee and any extension fees electronically. The system generates timestamped submission and payment receipts that serve as your proof of filing date. Patent Center also has a training mode for practicing the filing before doing it for real.
Paper Filing by Mail
If you must file by mail, send the complete package to:
Mail Stop RCE
Commissioner for Patents
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313-1450
Paper filing is slower and carries real risk. If the package arrives after the statutory deadline expires, the application goes abandoned regardless of when you mailed it, unless you use the certificate of mailing procedure under 37 CFR 1.8. For a deadline-sensitive filing, electronic submission is almost always the better choice.
What Happens After You File
A properly filed RCE immediately withdraws the finality of the last Office action and returns the application to active examination.1eCFR. 37 CFR 1.114 – Request for Continued Examination If you filed the RCE while an appeal was pending, the appeal is treated as withdrawn and prosecution reopens before the examiner. The application keeps its original filing date and priority chain. An RCE is not a new application.
The examiner then considers the new submission and issues a fresh Office action. If your amendments changed the scope of the claims, the next action is typically non-final, giving you another full round of prosecution. If the submission did not meaningfully change the issues, the examiner may issue another final rejection, and you are back where you started. From there your options are another RCE at the higher subsequent fee, an appeal, or abandonment.
The Patent Term Tradeoff
This is the hidden cost that catches many applicants off guard. Under federal law, if the USPTO takes more than three years from your actual filing date to issue a patent, you earn extra patent term at a rate of one day for each day of delay beyond that mark. Time consumed by continued examination that you requested is excluded from that calculation.8GovInfo. 35 USC 154 – Contents and Term of Patent
Every day your application spends in an RCE round is a day that will not count toward patent term adjustment. If your application is already approaching the three-year mark and you file an RCE, you are trading future patent life for another shot at prosecution. An appeal, while slower, does not trigger the same exclusion. For applications with commercial value, run the numbers on potential patent term loss before choosing between an RCE and an appeal.
Alternatives Worth Weighing First
An RCE is not always the right move. Before filing one, consider whether another path fits your situation better.
Appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
If you believe the examiner’s rejection is legally wrong rather than a matter of needing better evidence, a notice of appeal to the PTAB challenges the rejection on its merits. Appeals do not reopen prosecution; a panel of administrative patent judges decides whether the examiner applied the law correctly. They take longer and cost more in attorney time but can resolve rejections that further prosecution would not fix. A pre-appeal brief conference is a lower-cost variant: you file a notice of appeal with a short request of up to five pages of argument, and a panel of three USPTO officials decides whether the rejection should stand, prosecution should reopen, or the appeal should proceed.
Continuing Applications
A continuation application starts a new examination but claims the benefit of your original filing date. This makes sense when you want to pursue a different set of claims while keeping the parent application intact, or when you want a clean slate with a different examiner. The tradeoff is a new filing fee and a fresh examination timeline.
After-Final Practice Without an RCE
Sometimes a narrow amendment after final rejection is enough. If your proposed change does not broaden the claims or require a new search, the examiner has discretion under 37 CFR 1.116 to enter it. The USPTO’s After Final Consideration Pilot Program 2.0, which previously gave examiners extra time to consider after-final amendments, expired on December 14, 2024, and is no longer available.9United States Patent and Trademark Office. After Final Consideration Pilot Program 2.0 – CLOSED Examiners are not obligated to enter substantive after-final amendments under the standard rule.