We must charge more for paper work than for electronic work. We are able to keep our professional fees low only because we do things electronically. When we do something with signed papers, it requires a lot more work for us, and takes a lot more time. There are more mistakes that we can make (such as filing the wrong paper in the wrong file with the USPTO), and it takes extra time for us to check the work to try to catch such mistakes. You can see this in our schedule of professional fees, where we say that our inexpensive professional fees are available only if the client papers are signed electronically.
USPTO makes more mistakes with paper filings. There is also the problem that with paper filings, the USPTO sometimes makes mistakes, putting the wrong paper in the wrong file, or misunderstanding some filed paper. When USPTO makes such a mistake, we must then spend time trying to force the USPTO to correct its mistake. This costs money. With electronic filings, the papers go automatically into the correct file, and the USPTO is denied the opportunity to put the paper into the wrong file. With electronic filings, the paper is stored in the USPTO system in an automatic way according to its type (for example a "Section 8 paper" or a "Section 8 and 9 paper") so the USPTO is denied the opportunity to misinterpret a "Section 8 and 9 paper" as a "Section 8 paper", for example.
Things go faster with electronic filings. The electronic filing also gets processed much faster, within USPTO, than a paper filing. This is a big help if there is not much time left for a particular filing. This is also a big help if USPTO decides it is unhappy about something that we have filed, because if there is bad news then we receive the bad news faster. And it is simply good to get these things done faster so that the your firm and our firm and the client can all be finished sooner.
Saving money and time. Sending the papers to us on paper required 11.50 Euros of postage and we only received the registered envelope eleven days after the first email message from you. Doing things electronically saves the postage cost and the delays because of the slow postal service.
I realize that as for some clients it may be inconvenient to complete the electronic form from USPTO. But if the client can complete the electronic firm, the client enjoys many benefits such as mentioned above.
Section 15 papers. I also invite the client to consider filing "incontestability" papers (Section 15 papers) at this time.
The client can file Section 15 papers at any time that the client is able to say that the mark has been in continuous and exclusive use for the five years immediately prior to the filing of the Section 15 papers. Normally this would require paying a professional fee of $400 as well as the government fee of $200 per class. But the electronic filing mechanism at USPTO makes it very easy to do the Section 15 paper combined with the Section 8 paper (which is what we are filing now). So we are able to do the Section 15 paper with the Section 8 paper, while charging only the professional fee for the Section 8 paper.