Posts Tagged: "cost of doing business"

The Cost of Obtaining a Patent in the US

How much you will spend on a patent application also depends upon what it is that you want to do with the patent and whether there are realistic market opportunities. 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, but a cheap computer related patent would not be nearly as strong as a patent application costing $20,000 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, variations and different embodiements 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.

Gene Quinn

January 28, 2011

Patent Trolls Just a Cost of Doing Business for Big Tech

As so many run to condemn patent trolls and would like to compromise the integrity and strength of all patent rights to combat what they perceive as bad actors, I wonder whether patent trolls are really a drag on the high-tech industry. Are patent trolls really costing the industry, or is the industry making much ado about nothing? One theory holds that the tech industry is treating the patent troll phenomenon as nothing more than a nuisance, and a nuisance that is not worth doing anything about. I have for a long time stated that there are obvious strategies that could be employed, but they are ignored in favor of doing nothing. But earlier today I heard an interesting twist. What if they simply don’t want to do anything and they view the patent troll matter as simply a cost of doing business?

Gene Quinn

August 12, 2010