The first thing that must and should be explained to start is that obtaining a patent can be expensive. For this reason you should seriously consider obtaining a patent search first to help determine whether the cost of moving forward makes sense given the state of the prior art.  Starting the process with a patent search is particularly wise.

Second, while you do not get to make installment payments per se, and you will need to pay any attorneys fees associated with drafting and filing up front, the Patent Office has a tremendous backlog of cases, which means that after you file your application it will likely be at least 18 months (probably longer) before you hear from the examiner regarding the substance of your application. The time frame between when you hear from the examiner and final disposition of the case, called Patent Prosecution, can last for many months, sometimes even years in cutting edge technological fields. This means you get to stagger a portion of your investment over time. Like any endeavor requiring financial resources, a realistic budget makes all the difference.

Third, if you are going to pursue a patent and forego professional assistance you really need to go into the process with your eyes open. As a serial entrepreneur myself I can certainly understand the need to keep costs down, but so many inventors forego professional assistance, spend large sums of money in US governement fees paid to the Patent Office, and ultimately receive very little. If you need to cut costs do so with an eye toward the ultimate goal. Patent drawings should not be considered optional. They are cheap when weighed against the benefit derived. Also consider doing some work yourself and having a patent attorney review what you have done prior to filing.  Finally, you should at the very least obtain a copy of Patent it Yourself.   While this book is not perfect, it is a good resource, and for the price (which usually is around $35 to $45) you will definitely get an excellent value for what you receive.

If you need assistance preparing and filing a patent application we can help you.  The founder of IPWatchdog.com, Gene Quinn, is a senior partner in White + Quinn, P.C., which is a patent law firm located just outside Washington, DC. White + Quinn can assist you in preparing a nonprovisional patent application for filing at the United States Patent Office for $4,000 plus the US Patent Office filing fee, which is typically $500.  If you require professional patent drawings we can help you obtain those as well, typically at a price of $100 per sheet.  Similarly, if you would like a patent search and patentability review we can provide that for you as well.   If you are interested in filing a provisional patent application we encourage you to try our Free Provisional Patent Application process.

US Patent Office Fees Explained

As a result of legislation that became effective on December 8, 2004, the fee structure at the Patent Office changed. The filing fee to the Patent Office for an individual inventor or a small company that qualifies for small entity status (i.e., companies with fewer than 500 employees) is now $150.00. For those who are familiar with the fee structure prior to December 8, 2004, you will remember that the filing fee for small entities was formerly $395.00. It would, however, be a mistake to believe that the Patent Office has decreased its fees in such a significant way. The Patent Office has always like to charge a la carte fees, and now they have taken that tendency to new heights. In addition to the basic filing fee the patent fee legislation enacted on December 8, 2004, requires payment of a Search Fee ($250 for small entities) and an Examination Fee ($100 for small entities). Therefore, the total fee due to the Patent Office for a small entity to successfully launch a non-provisional utility patent application is $500.00. It is also important to realize that this initial fee covers 3 independent claims and 17 dependent claims. If you have more claims it costs more.

In addition to the various filling fees there will also be an issue fee due before any patent will be granted by the Patent Office. The current issue fee for a small entity is $700.00. So even without any attorney fees the absolute lowest you could pay for a single patent is $1,200.00. In reality what happens is that during prosecution many times the examiner will allow some claims but not all claims. If that happens you may decide to let the allowed claims issue, at which point the issue fee would become due. Then you may decide to continue fighting over the rejected claims in hopes of getting some of them through the office. That would require another patent application, which would lead to additional filing fees. You can, of course, always decide to drop the rejected claims and incur no additional fees with respect to them, or you could also decide to appeal, which means additional attorney time preparing the appeal, which also carries fees of between $500.00 and $1,000.00 for a small entity. The lesson here is that fees can add up quickly. It is true, however, that once you file an application it will likely be many months (or perhaps years) before the patent office will get back to you so you can usually stagger these additional fees.

Another cost associated with filing and/or issuance is the preparation of formal drawings. You will either need to be able to create patent drawings that are acceptable to the Patent Office or hire someone who can. Informal drawings are allowed to start, but formal drawings must be made before the patent can issue. Filing formal patent drawings initially, however, does create a broader initial disclosure, which can be most helpful. If you need to obtain professional patent drawings for something relatively simple may only cost in the range of $100 to $125 per drawing sheet, with each drawing sheet typically containing several figures per sheet. Given the complexity of the drawing rules and the comparatively small charge for professional drawings, it is usually better to hire someone who specializes in patent drawings.

 Attorneys Fees Explained

With respect to attorneys fees, these are going to vary quite significantly depending upon the geographical market and the attorney’s level experience. Based on 2001 economic data, the national average is about $252.00 per hour, the national median is $240.00 per hour, the 25th percentile is $198.00 per hour and the 75th percentile is $300.00 per hour. Cities like Boston and New York tend to be the most expensive (add about $75.00 to each number), with California close behind (add about $50.00) to each number. Texas, Chicago and Washington, D.C., also tend to be more expensive than most other parts of the country, but not as significantly so when compared to Boston, New York and California.

Since 2001, according to available survey data, the national average has largely remained in the $250 to $275 per hour range, however, in major cities the per hour average continues to be at a premium. Additionally, it needs to be understood that this national average takes into account all patent attorneys and agents, which means that a good number of extremely low costs service providers are driving down the averages.  If you are looking for an experienced patent attorney at a reputable firm you should anticipate hourly rates to be somewhere between $300 to $450 per hour, with some senior patent attorneys charging well over $500 per hour.

If you are going to simply hire a patent attorney to do everything for you I would seriously consider hiring a patent attorney who is located in a non-traditional patent market. For example, Florida is not known as a patent market, but there are a number of good patent attorneys there. The cost of doing business for an attorney in non-traditional markets is typically much less than for attorney’s in New York City, so you may be able to afford to have a partner with many years of experience work on your invention for less than you would have to pay an associate with little or no experience at a New York City law firm.  Nevertheless, you should not just race to the firm with the lowest prices.  Invariably, those offering bargain pricing are going to provide you with comparatively less time and service.  Be sure to do your homework before hiring a patent attorney offering low fees.

With respect to the estimate of how many attorney hours it would take is difficult without a good deal of information about the invention and/or what if any other, similar inventions are in the prior art. Here is an idea of what you might expect.

The first step in the process is usually undertaking a patent search to determine whether moving forward make sense. While you can and should do your own patent search, at some point in the process you will likely want to obtain a professional patent search itself usually runs from $300 to $600, with the price depending upon how detailed you want the search. If both a US and an international patent search is desired the cost does go up. It is important to understand that the cost of the patent search is a fixed, non-negotiable cost in many cases because the patent attorney will routinely outsource the search to firms who specialize only in finding prior art, much like is commonly the case in real estate transactions where attorneys hire title search companies who provide the information necessary for the attorney to review. For more information on patent searches CLICK HERE.

Upon receiving the patent search the patent attorney will review the search and issue a patentability opinion (either verbal or in writing, depending upon your preference and other considerations). The price of the patentability opinion can range quite a bit depending upon the complexity of the prior art found, as well as the volume of prior art found. Additionally, a patentability opinion can and frequently is influenced by the complexity of the inventors inventions itself. The low range ballpark figure for a patentability opinion would be $1,200.00. Again, it is important to remember that the complexity of the field of invention and number of related patents greatly affects the likely expenditure. If all you are looking for is an attorney who will answer your questions about a search and not actually provide a patentability opinion you should expect to spend about $200 to $400.

After the search and the patentability opinion or consultation it is up to you the inventor to give the green light to the patent attorney. These days it would be very rare for a review to result in an opinion that nothing could be patented. There is likely something that can always be protected. The question you will likely have to address is whether the likely protection that can be achieved is worth the expense of filing a patent application.

If you give the green light then the patent attorney will start working on the application. It is very difficult if not impossible to give a ballpark estimate without knowing a good bit about the invention and how complex the invention is. Nevertheless, below is some rough guidance regarding what you can expect to pay in attorneys fees through filing an application. The examples are intended to be illustrative of the level of complexity, not to suggest that they would be patentable.

These are just ballpark figures, and attorneys fees through filing can certainly go well above $25,00 depending on complexity of invention and/or the need for and ability to acquire broad patent protection. A lot will also depend upon what it is that you want to do with the patent, whether there are realistic market opportunities, etc. In the event there are realistic market opportunities you may spend more even on something that is simple to make sure that you have covered the invention enough to have a strong resulting patent. By way of example, you could probably find an attorney to write a patent for a business method or computer software for quite cheap (maybe $5,000), but a cheap computer related patent would not be nearly as strong as a patent application costing $25,000 or more. The devil is always in the details. Getting a stronger patent requires more claims and more attention to providing an adequate disclosure and describing as many alternatives, options and variations as possible. This, of course, requires greater attorney time and higher filing fees, which in turn requires more time spent working with the patent examiner to get the patent issued.

If you decide to go it alone and file your own patent application without an attorney you need to have your eyes open and understand the risks involved. The original patent application filed is critically important. It must be complete. Some mistakes can be corrected later on as you work with the patent examiner, but you absolutely will not be able to add new information to the original filing. Therefore, the original filing is the most important step in the invention/patent process. The mistake that most inventors make is to narrowly describe and claim exactly what they have invented and nothing else. What you have actually invented and are making must be included in the patent, but you will almost always be entitled to far broader scope than you could possibly imagine. For example, if you were to need to affix to piece of metal together, and in the original filing you mentioned only connecting these metal pieces by using rivets, your patent would not include and could not be amended later to include other methods of affixing pieces of metal, such as through nuts and bolts, welding or glue, just to name a few. This example illustrates how important it is to know the intricacies of patent law and patent claim drafting, which is why companies and experienced inventors hire patent attorneys rather than going it alone.

As you can see from the above discussion, it is also important to keep in mind that Patent Office fees can and do add up in a hurry. Therefore, while one says they want to save money by doing it themselves it is important to realize that a large percentage of the investment must still be made in the form of fees to the Patent Office. What you cut out is the attorney fees, but you also cut out the attorney expertise and run a high risk of still spending a good bit of money only to find that you are left with an unnecessarily narrow and perhaps useless patent.

Additional things to know and remember regarding the cost of obtaining a patent include (these assume you are a small entity, which means an individual or business with 500 or fewer employees):

(1) Currently the initial fees for a non-provisional application are $500.00 (there are actually 3 different fees which add up to $500, all of which are due at the time of filing), which covers the cost of 20 claims. Additional claims will cost more. Included in the 20 claims are 3 independent claims and 17 dependent claims. Independent claims in excess of 3 cost $100.00 and additional claims in excess of the 20 included claims cost $25.00.

(2) Currently it costs $700.00 to get a patent issued. Which means that once the Patent Examiner tells you that you have allowable material you must pay $700 to the Patent Office. If you do not then no patent will issue.

(3) Maintenance fees are required to keep the exclusivity of the patent in tact for the full patent term. Maintenance fees are due 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 years after issuance. Currently the cost of these maintenance fees for an individual inventor or small entity is $450.00, $1,150.00 and $1,900.00, respectively.

(4) During patent prosecution it is common to need to pay the Patent Office additional fees. As a general rule of law you have 6 months to respond to virtually anything the examiner sends. The examiner will ALWAYS shorten this period to between 1 month to 3 months. If you want the full 6 months to respond no problem, but there is an additional fee. When you work with the Patent Office you quickly realize just how capitalist the Office really is. You can do and fix just about anything, but there will be a fee. Currently, extensions of time, for an individual inventor or small entity, cost $60.00 for a 1 month extension, $225.00 for a 2 month extension, $510.00 for a 3 month extension, $795.00 for a 4 month extension, and $1,080.00 for a 5 month extension.

(5) If it becomes necessary or desirable to file a continuation (to keep the application alive to continue to fight for broad claims) there is another fee of between $395.00 and $500.00. If you want to make amendments after a final rejection that will also be another $395.00. Amendments after final are extremely common. This is true because one of the reasons you can file an amendment after final rejection is to accept an examiner suggestion. Examiners will frequently tell you in a final rejection that they would allow something if you made a specific change. Most will want to make the change, obtain a patent, and then consider filing a continuation to continue to fight for broader claims. What this means is that, at the very least, the additional $395.00 for filing amendments after final rejection should be considered to be a likely necessary expense.

(6) Each patent that issues will also have their own separate filing, issue and maintenance fees, as discussed in the previous paragraphs.

(7) Filing a provisional patent application is an excellent way to start the patent process for individual inventors, entrepreneurs and small businesses, but the provisional application will not mature into a patent. To obtain exclusive rights you must subsequently file a non-provisional application within 12 months of the filing date of the provisional. It is the non-provisional that will lead to exclusive rights. Provisional applications are tremendously useful, but please do understand the limitations.