Patent expiration and maintenance fee reminders
Extract patent expiration dates, maintenance fee windows, annuity deadlines, and licensing obligations from patent and IP documents.
PDF or DOCX, up to 10 MB. One free extraction per day. No signup needed.
Never miss a patent maintenance fee
Contracko automatically identifies the deadlines and obligations in your contract and sets reminders for you.
Renewal dates
Auto-renewal triggers and the next term start.
Notice deadlines
The last safe day to act before a clause locks in.
Expiration dates
When the current term ends, with renewal context.
Obligations
Reports, certificates, approvals, and recurring tasks.
Your privacy, guaranteed
Reminder guidance for this contract type
Patents lapse on fees, not just on expiry
Most people think of a patent ending at the 20-year term. In practice, the far more common way a patent dies is a missed maintenance fee. In the US, utility patents require fees at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years; miss the standard window and the surcharge window, and the patent lapses; reviving it is costly and far from guaranteed. Other jurisdictions charge annual annuities that compound the tracking burden. The expiration date is fixed and decades away; the fee windows are recurring, near-term, and unforgiving. A patent reminder that only tracks the 20-year term misses the deadlines that actually matter.
When a lapsed patent takes the royalty stream with it
Patents rarely sit in isolation. They back licensing deals, secure exclusivity in a market, and underpin valuations in fundraising and M&A. When a patent lapses on an unpaid fee, the licensing royalties tied to it can evaporate, competitors gain freedom to operate, and the asset disappears from the portfolio overnight. The cost of the missed fee is trivial; the cost of the lapse is the asset itself. Tracking each maintenance window as a distinct, owned reminder (separate from the distant expiry) is what protects the value the patent was filed to create.
Quick answers
Short answers to the questions we get most about reminder extraction.
Other reminder pages
Each page is tuned to a different contract type or reminder job.
Trademark expiration reminder
Extract trademark renewal dates, declaration-of-use windows, registration expirations, and licensing obligations.
Contract obligation reminder tool
Extract to-dos from contracts, separate them from dates, and see how Contracko can assign and track the work.
Expiration reminder software
Track expiration dates for contracts, policies, licenses, leases, and service agreements from one reminder workflow.
Keep every patent in force
Track maintenance fee windows, annuity deadlines, and expiration dates across your whole portfolio.