The USPTO requires legal practitioners doing patent work for hire, to pass a Bar exam specific to the patent system. Those who pass the Patent bar receive a registration number. Surprisingly, a law degree is not required to take the patent bar, but a technical degree or other technical qualification is required. Those that pass the bar are either called a patent agent (if they are not an attorney), or a patent attorney. A legal practitioner will likely be expensive, fees of $8,000 to $12,000 are common. A simple invention can be less, but will likely be at least $5,000 to $6,000 due to filing fees and the time involved. Many decent firms will work with you on ways to reduce the cost and some may even waive part of the cost for a partial interest in your patent. There are also several companies that act as invention clearing houses, that may buy your invention at the application stage and even give a share of future product royalties. Most of these are scams, but a good legal firm can help you find someone reputable. The most important part of your patent is the claims, which describe what is actually protected by the patent. Even if you draft part of your own patent, I would strongly advise you to seek the help of a experienced patent agent or attorney in writing this section of the patent. One additional item to note. It is not necessary to do a quot;prior art search for your invention before filing your patent. If fact, most large companies do not so so. The patent examiner will do the search and respond with an office action that outlines the related inventions that were found. You will then have to distinguish over these by either explaining how you invention is different as filed, or modifying what you are trying to patent to make it different. If you are concerned that the invention may be out there and don;t want to even pay filing fees, you can do a simple search yourself at the patent office website for existing patents and patent applications and look for on-line for other non-patent references such as white-papers or conference reports. Understand that even an improvement to an idea may be patented, so read them carefully to see if all of your invention is in there. Finally, there is something called a provisional patent that you could explore. This is a disclosure of the concept that gives you a documented date of invention, but allows you one year to file the rest of the patent. This would be a rudced cost to get your idea documented and then some time to finish the patent filing. Be careful. I personally am named inventor on 17 patents. I got totally ripped off on my early patents because they knew I did not understand the system. The main thing a law group tries to sell you on is a big prior art search and they can charge tens of thousands for it before you even get to drafting a single paragraph of your invention. If they start with that, then thank them and move on to the next one.
The only good answer you will receive is quot;it depends.quot; At a minimum, I would estimate a very easy patent application to cost $25,000. Technical patents would be a lot more.
contact my dad. He is a patent agent. he can probably help you. good luk
0 comments:
Post a Comment