The time between filing and initial examination of a trademark application at the United States Patent & Trademark Office has continued to stretch, and is currently over 8 months (https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/application-timeline). New fees proposed by the USPTO are intended to, among other things, decrease the overall workload of trademark examiners and thereby reduce pendency length.  

Specifically, applications that do not use the USPTO's standard identifications for goods and services and are instead entered in the application's “free-form text box” will carry an additional $200 fee per class. Similarly, any such descriptions exceeding 1,000 characters (whether entered at the time of application or on amendment in response to an office action or otherwise) will also incur an additional $200 fee. The fees apply to all new applications, including those based on foreign applications (under the Madrid Protocol or otherwise). Currently, the standard identifications available are somewhat limited and often there is no applicable standard ID available, so many applicants will have no choice but to incur such additional fees.

Whether the new fees will help reduce the long waits for examination remains to be seen, but clearly, the Office is continuing its push to encourage applicants to use its standard IDs. What is not clear is whether there will be an effort to expand that list to make use of such IDs more practicable.