When people talk about patents, they feel it’s just free, “Just patent it…” If you talk to an attorney these days, they start at $25,000. Well, which is it? Let me give you an idea.
Do You Really Need A Patent?
The first thing you need to evaluate is, Do You Need A Patent? Coca Cola doesn’t. Google didn’t get one till the
y were ready to change their search algorithm. The vast majority of products and inventions out there are not patented. Why is that? Well, two reasons, not filing because of intimidation or laziness, but more importantly, not giving others the real secrets of what the secret sauce or process is.
Is It Easy To Reverse Engineer?
So if the product, service or process is easy to reverse engineer, in other words, when you release it to the public, can someone analyze it and make an exact duplicate or maybe even a better unit or process or recipe easily? Then by all means, patent it. If it is not easy to reverse engineer, and you plan on keeping a competitive advantage for a long time (Like Coca Cola, with their formula), then you should not. Keep in mind that a utility patent is only good for 20 years (If filed after June 8, 1995) and a design patent is only good for 14 years.
So if you are an inventor and make less than about $150k/yr (3x the median salary of a regular household of $50k/yr), you can qualify as a Micro Entity. If you make more than $150k/yr, but are an individual, a university, non-profit or a small company (Less than 500 employees), then you qualify as a Small Entity.
So filing and the regular costs, like search, examination and issuance can cost are:
- From $640-$2,560 for a Utility patent
- From $330-$1,320 for a design patent.
Of course to maintain a utility patent beyond 3.5 years, there are maintenance fees (See chart below).
So if you are good in some legalese, drawing figures and do a lot of research and are able to craft the verbiage to file the patent, and you make less than $150k/yr, then you can get away $640. But if you need to have someone draw the diagrams for you, then you have added costs. If you need priority filing, or re-issuance, extension, etc, these numbers change. etc. then these numbers change.
I made a crude chart to give you an idea as to how much the actual costs are.
Of course these change over time, around the time of this post (Sept 2014) these were current numbers from the USPTO site.
To file a provisional patent is $65 for a Micro Entity, $130 for a Small Entity, and $260 for a Regular Entity. A Provisional patent, of course, is not a patent, it is the right to file a patent and use a prior date. More on Provisional Patents here…