I've just been issued a notice of allowance for my patent application. Since we (my attorney and I) filed pre-AIA, before micro entity status existed, we claimed small entity status.

Now that we've been given an allowance, I've requested that I claim micro-entity status.

My patent attorney wants to charge me $500 for filing the micro-certification form and handling payment of the issue fee. The issue fee will not be coming out of the $500, I have to add additional money for that.

But that $500 seems ridiculous. All the patent attorney is doing is uploading a couple of forms.

Can't I just upload the forms and pay for everything myself?

It looks like I would have to register with the patent office and get my own customer number to do this which would, it seems, remove my patent attorney from this application.