Should Small Businesses File Foreign Patent Applications?
A U.S. Patent Application does not offer any protection for your invention outside of the United States. If you want to protect your invention outside of the United States, then you will need to file a patent application in the particular country or countries of interest, or a PCT patent application.
Filing foreign patent applications can be costly. The international phase of a PCT patent application can cost thousands of dollars alone. Then in the national phase, you can quickly incur thousands of dollars (and significantly more, depending on the number of countries you decide to file in) – and none of this assures the business that a patent will even issue.
For more small businesses, the money saved by not filing international patent applications can better be used for marketing the invention in the United States. It’s always disappointing when someone has to stop pursuing their invention everywhere, even in the United States, because they blew their entire budget filing patent applications all over the world.
While I’m not saying that you shouldn’t consider filing foreign patent applications for your invention, you need to think seriously about the impact this will have on your budget and your ability to effectively advance your invention in the United States.
There are certain deadlines that apply, therefore you must notify your patent attorney immediately if you want to file any foreign patent applications.
Contact Colorado Patent Attorney Mark Trenner today for help with you patent needs.
