A Request for Continued Examination (RCE) is a filing under 37 CFR §1.114 that reopens prosecution of a non-provisional patent application after a final Office Action, without starting a new application. The application keeps its original serial number and filing date. What changes is the finality of the prior rejection: once a proper RCE submission is on file, the examiner has to treat the case as if prosecution were still open and consider the new arguments or amendments the applicant couldn’t get entered after final.
We’ve filed and argued RCEs from both sides of the desk. Having worked as USPTO examiners before moving into private practice, our patent prosecution team knows exactly what an RCE resets and what it doesn’t touch. According to the USPTO’s current fee schedule, filing an RCE now costs $1,500 for a large entity’s first request, a figure that matters when deciding between an RCE and the alternatives below. If you just received a final rejection, here’s what the RCE mechanism actually does and when it’s the right call.
Last updated: July 2026
What an RCE Is (and What It Isn’t)
An RCE is not an appeal, and it is not a new patent application. It’s a procedural request that continues examination of an existing case with the examiner already assigned to it, as long as that examiner is still with the Office.
RCE vs. Filing a New Application
A new application means a new filing date, new filing, search, and examination fees, and, in most situations, loss of the earlier priority date unless the new filing properly claims benefit back to the original. An RCE skips all of that. The case keeps its original filing date because it’s the same application, not a fresh one. The tradeoff: claims already on record, and any prior art already cited against them, carry forward. An RCE doesn’t wipe the slate. It reopens the same slate under the same case number.
How an RCE Resets Prosecution and Where It Lands on the Examiner’s Docket
Examiners earn “counts,” the USPTO’s internal productivity measure, for actions taken on an application, and filing an RCE generates a new count cycle for that examiner. That has a real effect on timing.
An application coming out of an RCE doesn’t jump to the front of an examiner’s docket. It goes back into that examiner’s active queue behind whatever new filings and RCEs came in ahead of it, and depending on that examiner’s current workload, the next Office Action can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. See our patent prosecution timeline breakdown for how an RCE typically shifts the overall filing-to-grant window. We tell clients to plan for wait times similar to what they saw before the final rejection, not shorter ones.
When to File an RCE After a Final Rejection
An RCE is one branch of a larger decision tree that starts the moment a final Office Action arrives. Our guide to responding to a patent office action walks through that full decision tree; this section focuses specifically on when the RCE branch is the right one. File an RCE when there’s a real submission to offer: new claim amendments, new arguments, new evidence, or some combination, and the case isn’t already closed by an appeal decision. An RCE without a substantive submission gets treated as improper and won’t withdraw the finality of the rejection.
What Examiners Expect to See in the First Office Action After an RCE
On the examining side of an RCE, the question isn’t whether the applicant wants more time. It’s whether the new submission actually changes what’s being examined. Under MPEP §706.07(h), if the amended claims are drawn to the same invention as before and could have been finally rejected on the same grounds cited in the prior final action, the examiner can make the very first Office Action after the RCE final again.
That catches a lot of applicants off guard, since many assume an RCE guarantees a non-final round. It doesn’t, unless the amendment or argument genuinely narrows the issue in dispute or introduces something the examiner hasn’t already addressed.
Signals an RCE Is the Right Move
- The examiner refused to enter an after-final amendment because it raised new issues, and there’s no time left to pursue a partial appeal
- New prior art surfaced through an Information Disclosure Statement that has to be addressed before the case can move forward
- Claims need substantive narrowing or restructuring beyond what an after-final amendment under 37 CFR 1.116 can accomplish
- An examiner interview revealed a path to allowance that requires a formal amendment on record
RCE vs. Appeal vs. After-Final Amendment: Comparing Your Options
A final rejection puts three paths on the table, and picking wrong wastes both time and fees. Here’s how the three compare:
| Option | What it does | Fee (1st use, large entity) | Effect on finality | Typical timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCE | Reopens examination with a new submission | $1,500 | Withdraws finality entirely | New Office Action in weeks to months, depending on examiner’s docket |
| Notice of Appeal | Sends the rejection to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for review | $905 (notice) plus briefing costs | Preserves finality unless the Board reverses | Often 12+ months to a decision |
| After-final amendment (37 CFR 1.116) | Requests entry of a limited amendment without reopening prosecution | No separate USPTO fee, though attorney time applies | Examiner has discretion to refuse entry | Weeks, but entry isn’t guaranteed |
We favor an after-final amendment first when the fix is narrow and the examiner is likely to agree. An examiner interview before filing anything often clarifies which of the three actually applies. If the rejection turns on a legal or claim construction dispute rather than something amendment can fix, appeal deserves serious consideration instead of a second or third RCE. Our claim amendment strategy guide covers how to evaluate whether narrowing claims is worth the tradeoff before choosing any of these three routes.
USPTO Fees for RCE (2026)
RCE fees increased under the USPTO’s January 2025 fee schedule and were confirmed unchanged as of the July 2026 revision. The fee depends on whether it’s the first RCE filed in the application or a second (or later) request:
| RCE request | Large entity | Small entity | Micro entity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st request | $1,500 | $600 | $300 |
| 2nd and subsequent requests | $2,860 | $1,144 | $572 |
Small entity status applies to independent inventors, small businesses, and nonprofits meeting USPTO criteria; micro entity status has additional income and filing-history requirements. The jump between the first and second RCE fee, nearly double at every entity tier, is deliberate. It’s meant to discourage filing repeat RCEs as a substitute for a clear prosecution strategy.
How many RCEs are too many?
There’s no statutory limit on the number of RCEs an applicant can file in a single application. We’ve seen cases resolve on the first RCE and others go through three or four rounds before allowance. The question isn’t a hard number; it’s whether each successive RCE is doing something the last one didn’t.
A second RCE that repeats the same arguments with cosmetic claim changes rarely moves an examiner who already rejected those arguments once. At that point, an appeal to the PTAB, where a different set of eyes reviews the rejection, often makes more strategic sense than paying $2,860 to ask the same examiner the same question again. We treat each RCE decision as its own cost-benefit call: what does this submission change, and is that change worth the fee and the months it adds to the timeline.
How an RCE Affects Your Patent Term (PTA)
Filing an RCE has a direct, and often overlooked, effect on patent term adjustment (PTA). Under 37 CFR §1.703(b)(1), once an RCE is filed, the “B-delay” clock (the USPTO’s guarantee against examination delays past three years from filing) stops accruing for the period between the RCE filing date and the mailing of a notice of allowance. In practice, that means any additional prosecution time spent after an RCE typically doesn’t add to the patent’s eventual term extension, even if the USPTO itself is slow to act.
There’s a separate wrinkle if an RCE is filed after a notice of allowance has already issued, for example to submit a late Information Disclosure Statement. In that scenario, the time between the notice of allowance and the RCE filing counts as applicant delay under 37 CFR §1.704, which reduces PTA rather than simply pausing it. We flag this for clients specifically when new prior art surfaces close to allowance: filing the RCE is usually still the right move, but it comes with a PTA cost worth knowing about upfront, not after the patent issues.
RCE Questions Applicants Ask Before Filing
No. An RCE reopens examination with the same examiner using a new submission, whether that’s amended claims, new arguments, or new evidence. An appeal instead sends the existing rejection to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for review by administrative judges, without giving the examiner another look at the merits, unless the examiner voluntarily reopens prosecution in response to the appeal brief before the case reaches the Board.
Yes, and it’s a common route for submitting an Information Disclosure Statement that surfaced too late for normal entry before allowance. Filing the RCE withdraws the allowance and reopens examination so the new prior art can be considered. As covered above, though, this specific timing can reduce patent term adjustment for the period between the notice of allowance and the RCE filing date.
It depends entirely on the assigned examiner’s current docket, not on the RCE itself. Some examiners issue the next Office Action within a few weeks of the filing; others take several months, depending on their existing caseload. There’s no accelerated track built into RCE practice specifically, though prioritized examination under the Track One program can be requested separately for an additional fee.
No statutory limit exists under 37 CFR 1.114. The practical limit is strategic rather than legal: each RCE should bring something genuinely new to the record, whether that’s a claim amendment, a fresh argument, or evidence the examiner hasn’t seen. Repeat filings that restate the same position with cosmetic changes rarely move an outcome and add cost without benefit.
No. The application keeps its original filing date and, where applicable, its claimed priority back to an earlier provisional application or foreign filing. An RCE continues the same application under the same serial number, so nothing about the priority chain changes. Only filing a genuinely new, separate application would affect the priority date the claims can rely on.
The application goes abandoned once the statutory response period, plus any extensions of time the applicant pays for, runs out with no reply on file. Reviving an abandoned application afterward requires a separate petition to the USPTO along with additional fees, which makes missing the deadline entirely more costly, in both time and money, than filing an RCE at the last minute.
No. RCE practice under 37 CFR 1.114 applies to utility and plant applications, not to design applications. Design applications that need continued examination after a final rejection use the Continued Prosecution Application (CPA) procedure instead, which is a legacy mechanism the USPTO retained specifically for design cases even after phasing it out for utility filings back in 2000.
Deciding Whether an RCE Is Your Next Step
An RCE is a tool for a specific situation: a final rejection that a real amendment or argument can still overcome, filed with an examiner who hasn’t yet closed the door on the invention. It’s not a default reaction to bad news, and it’s not free, especially past the first request. Weighing the fee against an after-final amendment or an appeal, and understanding what an RCE does to your patent term along the way, is exactly the kind of decision where having examined thousands of applications from the inside changes the read.
We work through this decision with clients case by case, looking at what the examiner actually objected to and what’s realistic to fix. If you’re facing a final Office Action and weighing your options, our team can review the rejection and lay out which path fits your case.
IP Boutique Law is a patent and intellectual property firm in Washington, D.C. with 25+ years of USPTO examiner experience. Our team handles patent drafting, prosecution, trademark registration, design patents, provisional applications, ex parte reexamination, and patent reissue across chemical, biochemical, electrical, and mechanical fields. We serve inventors and companies in the U.S. and internationally, bringing insider examiner knowledge to every stage of the patent process.
Reviewed by Carlos López, patent attorney and former USPTO examiner with 25+ years of IP experience.