How much do you have to pay to get a patent?

[zidane1strife]

I'd like to know, and also how descriptive must you be(of your invention.).

I think I've come up with some really cool ideas(none have done them yet.), and I'd like to patent them.

 

[Simon F]

How much do you have to pay to get a patent?...I'd like to know,

Gosh. That can depend on how big your patent is (in terms of numbers of claims) and where you want to apply for your patent.
There are fees for

• The patent office: I can't recall if there is a fee for the initial lodging of the patent, but there are charges for the examination (i.e. to check if the patent is new or not obvious), and there may also be 'maintenence" fees that crop up from time to time.
• You also have to pay for every country you want protection in and that can also incur translation charges. The one good thing is that you don't immediately have to file in those countries. Once you have a 'priority date' in one country, you can retrospectively use that date if you file elsewhere later.
• Patent lawyers: It is difficult to write a good patent (especially the important claims section) and, unless you've had a lot of experience it might be a good idea to use a patent attorney. They, of course, charge for their services.

The actual amount is going to vary from country to country and for different attorneys so it'd be best to ask directly yourself.

and also how descriptive must you be(of your invention.).

Descriptive enough so that an person with average knowledge in that field can go out and implement your invention.

I think I've come up with some really cool ideas(none have done them yet.), and I'd like to patent them.

Good luck. Frankly, patents are the bane of my life

 

[Bigus Dickus]

(1) I'd hire a patent attorney. Something worth patenting is something worth making sure the patent is actually useful for protecting your idea. This isn't where you want to save money.

(2) For a typical small patent of a single idea with just a few claims, using a respectable patent attorney, you can expect to pay:

- Approx. $500 for a thorough patent search to see if the idea encroaches on another patent.

- A few thousand (could range from perhaps $2k to $10k+) for legal fees, drawings, application fees, etc.

- Several thousand over the life of the patent if you find it valuable enough to keep current (the USPTO charges a maintenence fee to keep your IP rights going, these fees come up every few years).

 

[Simon F]

(1) I'd hire a patent attorney. Something worth patenting is something worth making sure the patent is actually useful for protecting your idea. This isn't where you want to save money.

Just to add to that: To save yourself money, do some quick searching yourself - don't waste time re-patenting the wheel. The USPTO and EPO (the EPO lists more patents from around the world) allow key word searching. Also try searching IEEE and ACM abstracts.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Ahh... yes, good point Simon. I forgot to mention that, and it's pretty important.

The USPTO website is very useful, and the patent search ability is fairly comprehensive of recent patents (not sure how far it goes back now, they're continually adding older information).

You may well find your "unique idea" represented by an existing patent with an online USPTO search, and save yourself the ~$500 of having an attorney or agency perform the search. A thorough search of the online USPTO database won't be a quick ordeal though... I'd allocate several days of searching (a couple of hours per day).

However, if you don't find your "unique idea" in the online patent database, don't assume that it really is unique. Keyword searches are only as good as your keywords, category searches may miss related categories you wouldn't expect to contain the material in question, and the online database doesn't contain all US patents, let alone international patents. Several times I've come up empty with an online search spanning weeks, and yet a patent attorney was able to dig up several closely related patents.

If you don't find it with your online search, that's when you move ahead and pay an attorney/agency to complete a thorough physical search at a USPTO repository (and even those aren't 100% exhaustive... the patent review board could always find something you and/or your attorney/agency overlooked).

A last bit of advice... don't waste any money on a patent until you have a clear plan of how to turn that idea into a marketable one. Manufacturer it yourself, license the technology, or sell the patent outright? Make sure it isn't just unique, but something that actually has value. There's a zillion uniques ideas to would be patentable, but often the reason it isn't patented already is because it has no potential to generate money (or little potential). Paying to get an idea patented just to say you have a patent is one of the most expensive pieces of paper you can hang on your wall. You may also find that existing patents leave very little "intellectual real-estate" to claim with a new patent, in which case patent lawsuits and stiff competition if you brought something to market are a distinct possibility. That has been my luck so far, and I've yet to think that small sliver of real estate I could claim (temporarily, at least) would be worth the risk or the money (large companies do this all the time though, mostly to protect their central claim by gobbling up all the surrounding real estate).

Then again... there's a million good ideas that would make plenty of money that haven't yet been thought of.

 

[DemoCoder]

The last patent I filed cost $20k in legal fees.

 

[zidane1strife]

Make sure it isn't just unique, but something that actually has value.

Well, my current idea is unique(I'm certain of it.), but I've got to see if it works first... it seems like it would work, but still I think it's impossible for it to work, for it would violate the laws of physics...

 

[Bigus Dickus]

lol

 

[V3]

I guess, you also put money aside to look for people who infringed your patents and also legal fee to take them to court.

Without that your patent is just an open idea.

 

[Simon F]

I guess, you also put money aside to look for people who infringed your patents and also legal fee to take them to court.

Without that your patent is just an open idea.

I think I should begin with "IANAPL" **

I believe that, at this point, the system unfortunately can be open to abuse. If party A have a patent that might be related to a product company B is manufacturing then, I THINK, party A may be able to stop B from selling their product if they simply "suspect" B of using the patented technology.

Whether that it the case or not, B might just hand over money because the loss of income may be greater than the cost of "licensing" the patent. (I believe something like this happened to a company a friend worked for).

Mind you, this probably only works if A is only a small company with nothing else to lose should B actually stand up and fight. Bigger companies will probably just cross-license.


** Thank god!

 

[malcolm]

It is not even possible to release anything new without patenting it because someone else will patent it for you ...
what if you just want to release some new software for free with source code? you just cant ...
damn the stupidity of this world...

 

[V3]

I believe that, at this point, the system unfortunately can be open to abuse. If party A have a patent that might be related to a product company B is manufacturing then, I THINK, party A may be able to stop B from selling their product if they simply "suspect" B of using the patented technology.

I think company B should be given some doubt to the unproven claim, and allow to continue at its own risk. But this isn't abuse, this is just protecting IP.

It is not even possible to release anything new without patenting it because someone else will patent it for you ...
what if you just want to release some new software for free with source code? you just cant ...
damn the stupidity of this world...

As long as you released yours first, it should be fine. You can only patent something new.

 

[malcolm]

As long as you released yours first, it should be fine. You can only patent something new.

I tought i read a few times here already about things that are well known but never been patented being patented by some company that realy did not invent it (and this realy bothers a lot of people here i remember).
Well i suppose maybe they got some laws against it but i wouldnt want to be bothered with going to court and all that, it would just realy irritate me to have to put my time in this stupidity.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

You can't patent something that is already in the public domain. i.e., if you write some new software and post the code publicly (and this forum would suffice), then it can no longer be patented (actually, I think there is a time limit involved here, but that's getting a bit more complicated).

Which by extension means you should watch what you say about your "grand ideas" on internet forums. If you describe your great invention in enough detail, that could well be considered documenting the invention in public, thereby negating your rights to patent.

Or so I remember... may have killed some of those brain cells through the years...

 

[Simon F]

You can't patent something that is already in the public domain. i.e., if you write some new software and post the code publicly (and this forum would suffice),

To be honest, I think you would have to choose something a little more, well, permanent - things tend to change on the internet a bit rapidly. A scientific journal would be a good choice even if it the idea is just contained in a "letter to the editor".

Mind you, I've found that during the examination process, the US patent office generally only cites prior art they've found in their own US patents. The EPO , OTOH, seems to also look in journals, which is a lot more reassuring that they are doing their job.

 

[malcolm]

ok thanks, thats something i dont have to worry about anymore then
not that im planning to do that any time soon, but its good to know

 

[zidane1strife]

Do you actually have to publish your stuff to make it unpatentable?

I mean so I go and do 15-20+yrs of rsrch(secret aka ala gov.) and someone gets a hold of my data(info leaks/spies/mistakes)... and they can go out and patent it?

 

[V3]

Do you actually have to publish your stuff to make it unpatentable?

When you patent stuff, its the same as publishing it. But normally they patent first before doing a PR announcement.

I mean so I go and do 15-20+yrs of rsrch(secret aka ala gov.) and someone gets a hold of my data(info leaks/spies/mistakes)... and they can go out and patent it?

Well, its possible

But it would be gutsy move to actually make a suit against the gov.

 

[zidane1strife]

But it would be gutsy move to actually make a suit against the gov.

Yeah, but say against companies. All I have to do is have many an insider in many of'em and presto, I can patent all of their r&d before they do!!!!

Is something like that actually possible?

 

[Simon F]

Do you actually have to publish your stuff to make it unpatentable?

I mean so I go and do 15-20+yrs of rsrch(secret aka ala gov.) and someone gets a hold of my data(info leaks/spies/mistakes)... and they can go out and patent it?

Something not unrelated has already happened. Two of the current public key crypto systems (RSA and Diffie-Hellman) were actually invented previously by (a?) researcher(s) in GCHQ. These, however, remained secret until Rivest et al, and Diffie and Hellman re-discovered the techniques and made them public. They, therefore, got the patents and fame for their techniques.

The amazing thing was the the GCHQ researcher who realised how to do "RSA" thought it through entirely at home one night in his head (!) because they weren't allowed to write down anything relating to their work outside of their offices! (Saw this in a program by Simon Singh).

Do you actually have to publish your stuff to make it unpatentable?

When you patent stuff, its the same as publishing it. But normally they patent first before doing a PR announcement.

Warning IANAPL:
IIRC, in the US you are allowed one year's grace from the time of a public disclosure to the time of filing for a patent. That, however, does not apply in Europe where a public disclosure will invalidate a later patent filing (of the same material).

Yeah, but say against companies. All I have to do is have many an insider in many of'em and presto, I can patent all of their r&d before they do!!!!

Is something like that actually possible?

I'm not sure how that would work and so, in the tradition of the internet, I'll just do some speculation

In the US the law is "the first to invent" and so the company could challenge the "stolen" patent in court (if they have the money). To do that the parties would have to supply documentary evidence showing the existance of the invention (eg dated work books, backups of files etc) prior to the filing date and prior to any evidence from the patentee.

In other countries, I think it's the "first to patent" in which case their defence might be to claim the invention is obvious by showing that they had invented it too (shrug). Perhaps there might be a way of proving theft? Again this is just speculation.